HIV: The Family Inheritance

[Guest guest]

P. Anil Kumar

B. Jagdish, who got the infection via blood transfusion from his HIV+ father, works at a mirchi yard

AIDS IN GUNTUR: EARNING CHILDREN

HIV, The Family Inheritance

In HIV-afflicted Guntur, children, often infected themselves, turn breadwinners

MADHAVI TATA

Devurapalli Gopi of Gorantla village in Guntur district has a daily routine and burden of responsibility that would crush any strong, healthy adult.

But having lost his parents and little sister to aids five years ago, he has no choice but to support his grandmother Kondamma and himself.

A +Ve Curse

So between getting himself an education and battling the fever, stomach infection and swelling in the glands courtesy his own HIV infection, Gopi puts in a few hours at a paper mill, where an hour's work gets him a meagre Rs 30. Studying in Class 5, he pedals off to work as soon as school is over. And he has for company thousands of other children like him.According to a survey of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), Guntur district, with a population of 44 lakh, is the second-worst HIV-affected district in India, next only to Aizawl in Mizoram (Andhra Pradesh accounts for 10 per cent of all HIV+ persons in India). With a National Highway of 78.2 km, an abundance of pilgrimage and tourist sites, tobacco, paper, cotton mills and chilli yards, Guntur is a popular hangout for mobile sex workers. A study by the AP State AIDS Control Society (APSACS) confirms the state's highest concentration of sex workers in this district. And HIV prevalence among sex workers is 12.8 per cent (2005 figures) in AP as a whole. In Guntur alone, 26.6 per cent of the population tested HIV+ at voluntary counselling and testing centres. The spread of HIV renders the children vulnerable, many of them carrying the infection from birth. An official estimate by Family Health International in Guntur city and a few mandals around it puts at least 2,500 children as either infected by HIV, or affected by it because their parents have the disease. Often, in such families, it is the children who shoulder the burden of caring for their terminally-ill parents and younger siblings. A cluster of NGOs, jostling for space and UN funds, fall over themselves to provide nutrition, medicines and school books to these children but all that support does little to redeem their gruelling lives. In mandals like Peddakakani, Narsaraopet, Mangalgiri, Chilakaluripeta, several such condemned children are the sole support of their parents. In Thekallapadu village, for example, 13-year-old HIV+ Siva Nagamalleswari has just come back from school. But she has no time to talk to Outlook as she has to immediately rush off to join her mother Samarajyam (also HIV+) at a bottling factory in Autonagar where she puts in three hours every day, for Rs 20 per hour.NGO World Vision provides Nagamalleswari with four kg of supplements like sprouts, ragi, pulses and Horlicks every month. But mother and child are so steeped in microfinance debts that they need to earn daily labour wages. "My father, Arjun Rao, died of AIDS five years ago. We spent a lot of money on his treatment," says Nagamalleswari. Despite recurring stomach infections, skin rashes, fever, migraines, toothaches and bodyaches, she says she's healthier than her mother. "My mother can't make it to the factory every day," she says. "That means I have to go." Her schoolmates do not know about her disease, but neighbours and relatives do, and they avoid their house like the plague.But as the symptoms become evident, the ostracisation begins even at school. Forced to quit, these children then take up work full time. AIDS became B. Jagdish's lot when the 14-yr-old from Uppalapadu village received a blood transfusion from his HIV+ father Ramesh several years ago. He now has multiple infections, skin allergies, a racking cough and poor appetite. Jagdish skips school frequently not only because he feels unwell, but also because his schoolmates taunt him that his father is a "bad man".

On the days he avoids school, Jagdish is at the nearby chilli yard full-time. His father, a peon at the municipal office in Guntur, has now started vomiting blood. It's now on Jagdish to look after his mother and sisters Hadasa and Mamatha.Adopted by former sex worker Mani, who's also HIV+, 15-yr-old Sambasiva works at a vegetable shop

In the infamous red-light town of Chilakaluripeta, rampant prostitution and low usage of condoms has allowed AIDS easy access. Most of the infected children here have mothers who are sex workers. For them, education is a distant dream, survival—at any cost— their only reality. Fifty-year-old Mani, a former sex worker and HIV-positive, adopted orphan Sambasiva who too is infected like her. But finding a mother has been no solace for the 15-year-old who has never gone to school. Mani is too sick to work, which leaves Sambasiva to toil 12 hours a day in a vegetable shop to earn a meagre Rs 25. Living with Mani in a dingy room in a brothel, Sambasiva is often sent out by neighbouring aunties to buy cigarettes and liquor when clients arrive, for which service he gets small tips. Ratnam, coordinator of NGO HELP, which works with HIV-infected children in Chilakaluripeta, says it is extremely difficult to motivate such children to study. "So all we do is provide them with food and facilitate anti-retro viral therapy (ARV) in advanced cases."There are no reliable statistics available for the number of children affected by HIV in Guntur district. Uma Devi, AIDS control officer at Guntur, says she depends on NGOs to tabulate figures which often overlap. "But I can vouch that awareness has increased tremendously," she declares. A strange claim for a district where condom usage is only 20 per cent among high-risk groups.At a counselling session for children, held by NGO seeds, we meet 14-yr-old J. Sambasiva Rao, an HIV+ orphan who dropped out of school to work at a bar in Challavaripalem to support himself and his sister. It gets him Rs 600 a month. Though he has been put on ARV treatment, he has fixed his hopes on divine intervention. Shying away from the camera, Samba tells us, "I'm observing a 41-day deeksha of Goddess Bhavani. I'm told it will cure me totally." If only...

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