The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : There is still hope for children of HIV positive parents

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Monday, Dec 01, 2008
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There is still hope for children of HIV positive parents

Afshan Yasmeen

A foster care programme allows such children to be adopted

SETTING AN EXAMPLE: Chandrika who adopted a 10-year-old HIV positive girl under a foster care programme.

Bangalore: Life could not have been any better for 21-month-old Divya, daughter of a HIV positive person. Protected from the stigma and discrimination that her mother faced, Divya goes to a baby-sitting centre during the day and plays in the evenings with her foster-sister Chandini, who has even started to teach her alphabets.

All this thanks to Parimala, an outreach worker with Swathi Mahila Sangha (SMS), a collective of sex-workers. Parimala has included Divya and her mother Manjula into her family, and they have been living together for the last 18 months. Parimala’s 14-year-old daughter Chandini treats Divya like her own sister.

“I met Manjula at the Bangalore City Railway Station when I was working as a peer educator at SMS. Though I have worked and interacted with several HIV positive women on the field, my heart went out for Manjula. I could not see her shiver in the cold with a two-month-old baby in her arms on the railway platform. After convincing my family members, I took both Manjula and her baby home,” Parimala told The Hindu on the eve of World AIDS Day.

Though Parimala got to know that Manjula is HIV positive a few months after that, her attitude towards Manjula did not change a bit. “We eat in the same plates and share the same beddings. After having worked with SMS for more than three years, I know the basics of HIV and how it spreads. What if I had a sister with the disease? Would I have thrown her out of the house?” Parimala said.

Asserting that Divya is not HIV positive, Manjula said, “The same people who shunned and abandoned me earlier are asking for my baby now after they learnt that she is not HIV positive. But we will stay with Parimalamma, who came to our rescue during our bad times.”

Another living example of how there is hope for children of HIV positive people is Chandrika, a person living with HIV. Though she has a 12-year-old HIV positive son, she had adopted a 10-year-old girl for two years under the foster care programme run by ActionAid and Milana, a family support network for women living with HIV. Chandrika is a peer counsellor with Milana.

“Though I have my own son to look after (he is on second line antiretroviral therapy), I was motivated to adopt this girl as I know how society discriminates against HIV positive women. I have experience of how parents throw out their HIV positive daughters and husbands abandon wives. If this is the case with adults, what would happen to a child, who has lost her mother to the disease,” Chandrika said.

Pointing out that it was difficult to convince her family about bringing another HIV positive child to their house, Chandrika said she is a satisfied person now.

“Under the programme I was allowed to keep the child for one year. But I requested and kept her for two years. She has become a part of my life since then. It was actually difficult to let her go. But my own son was also growing up and I could not keep her for more than two years as per the rules. She was sent to a hostel for high school studies, and now she is in 8th standard. I go and see her sometimes and she still comes home during holidays,” Chandrika added.

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