HIV, The Family Inheritance

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...