AIDS scenario in India

* Safe sex remains as important in India as in most other countries of the world.

* India has more AIDS and HIV-infected cases than any other country in the world. But don't panic - AIDS is a scourge to all of mankind today. That's why the first point on our Do's and Don'ts list is to use the condom if at all you have to have extra-marital sex in India.

* The high-risk population segments are sex workers and their clients, truck drivers, homosexuals, and injection drug users. An estimated 12 per cent of infections come from blood transfusions.

* UNICOM has warned that an AIDS epidemic could break out in India in early 21st century. However, this need not scare visitors because intensive national and international efforts are underway to prevent Unicom's warning from coming true.

* The worst projection is that India will have between 20 to 50 million AIDS and HIV-infected people by the dawn of the 21st century, with Mumbai the worst affected. In the late 1990s, Mumbai is estimated to have nearly 5 million such cases. An average of 800 new cases are believed to be occurring in Mumbai everyday. As much as 52 per cent of sex workers in Mumbai had been infected by 1994.

* Female sex workers in India are especially vulnerable to infection because the fear of losing business dissuades them from insisting on protection.

* Again, don't panic. AIDS is a problem facing the whole world. The hugeness of India's population makes even its statistics huge. Unlike the common cold, AIDS can be avoided in most cases if one decides to avoid it.

There is no second life, no excuses for the mistake. So be aware about the death penalty.

Sonagachi, translated as Golden Tree, is the largest red light district in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. It is an area with
several hundred multi-story brothels and some 10,000 sex workers. Sonagachi is located in North-Kolkata near the intersection of Chittaranjan Avenue, Sova Bazar and Beadon Street, just north of the Marble Palace.

History
The area was used by the Bengali Babus for maintaining concubines and mistresses in the 1700s and 1800s. Several mansions in this district have their roots in history in the early days of British Raj. Legends say that even the famous courtesans and patrons of Paris knew of the fame of the Golden district of Kolkata.

Today, several NGOs and government organizations operate here for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases [STD] including AIDS. The Sonagachi project is a prostitute's cooperative that operates in the area and empowers sex workers to insist on condom use and to stand up against abuse. The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) runs the Sonagachi project and several similar projects in West Bengal, organizing some 65,000 prostitutes and their children. The DMSC hosted India's first national convention of sex workers on November 14th, 1997 in Kolkata, entitled 'Sex Work is Real Work: We Demand Workers Rights'. The organization lobbies for the recognition of sex workers' rights and full legalization, runs literacy and vocational programs, and provides micro loans.

Prostitution is currently a contentious issue in India. India is estimated to have 2 million female sex workers. Brothels are illegal de jure but in practice they are restricted in location to certain areas of any given town and thus although the profession does not have official sanction, little effort is made to stamp it out or to take action to impede it.

Sonagachi in Kolkata and Kamathipura in Mumbai , G.B. Road in New Delhi, Reshampura in Gwalior and Budhwar Peth in Pune host thousands of sex workers there and they are famous red light centres in India. Earlier there was a centre in Dalmandi in Varanasi and Naqqasa Bazaar in Saharanpur also. A prostitute from Haryana, Shaveta Chaudhary, allegedly has been seen in high profile parties, operating as an escort to amuse big business men and politicians.

Mumbai and Kolkata (Calcutta) have the country's largest brothel based sex industry, with over 100,000 sex workers in Mumbai. It is estimated that more than 50% of the sex workers in Mumbai are HIV-positive. In Surat, a study discovered that HIV prevalence among sex workers had increased from 17% in 1992 to 43% in 2000.

Legal status

The current laws in India that legislate sex workers are fairly ambiguous. It is a system where prostitution is legally allowed to thrive, but which attempts to hide it from the public. The primary law dealing with the status of sex workers is the 1956 law referred to as the The Immoral Traffic (Suppression) Act (SITA). According to this law, sex work in India is neither legal nor illegal; it is tolerated since prostitutes can practice their trade privately but cannot legally solicit customers in public. As long as it is done individually and voluntarily, a woman (male prostitution is not recognized in the Indian constitution) can use her body's attributes in exchange for material benefit. Once she is joined by another engaging in the same practice, the premises being utilized is recognized as a brothel and the act becomes illegal. In particular, the law forbids a sex worker to carry on her profession within 200 yards of a public place.

Unlike as is the case with other professions, however, sex workers are not protected under normal workers laws, and are not entitled to minimum wage benefits, compensation for injury or other benefits that are common in other types of work. They do, however, possess the right to rescue and rehabilitation if they desire and possess all the rights of other citizens. In practice this is not common. The Indian Penal Code (IPC) which predates the SITA is often used to charge sex workers with vague crimes such as "public indecency" or being a "public nuisance" without explicitly defining what these consist of. Recently the old law has been amended as The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act or PITA. Attempts to amend this to criminalise clients have been opposed by the Health Ministry, and has encountered considerable opposition. In an interesting and positive development in the improvement of the lives of female sex workers in Calcutta, state owned insurance company has provided life insurance to 250 individuals.