People with HIV speak out against discrimination

PANAJI: Despite legislations and ample awareness about HIV/AIDs, people living with the disease continue to be stigmatised. Similarly, transgenders face the highest level of discrimination. These were some of the issues discussed at a forum held in the city on Friday to mark Zero Discrimination Day.

An initiative of NGO Human Touch Foundation the forum had seven speakers.

People living with HIV (PLHIV) activist Celina D’Costa, who discovered her HIV status shortly after her husband was detected with the disease, said she was thrown out of her husband’s house.

Her husband had died within three months of his status becoming clear. “My mother-in-law locked toilets in the house as she and others feared they would get the disease if they shared the toilet with me. They didn’t want me to be in the same house as they believed mosquito bites could also be a source of infection.”

20 years later, she said, she is in a better placed and that level of discrimination doesn’t exist any more, though it still exists. If there was zero discrimination, people would not have hesitated to reveal their HIV/AIDS status, she said

Monika Shatriya, disability and gender rights activists, spoke about how transgenders are subjected to inhuman treatment. She said the legislation for transgenders is a half-hearted attempt. The proposed provision in the legislation for setting up a committee to certify the status of a transgender is not right, she said.

Lawyer and human rights activist Adv Albertina Almeida said some of the legislations introduced to remove discrimination are yet to be implemented.

Administrator at Fr Agnel College Fr Allan Tavares, talking about discrimination against transgenders, said “Who are we to think they are abnormal and we are normal.”