Working with married women

“My tongue did not have the strength to ask before.” Anonymous woman who asked her husband if he was HIV-positive when he was dying.

Women form 30 per cent of the population affected by HIV/AIDS in Sangli district. Quite often, women get into arranged marriages with older men, who are more exposed to sexual activity, and may have had multiple sexual partners. “Even if they know their husband is alcoholic or sleeping around or HIV infected, there is no space in the marriage to discuss these things.”

Nor do women feel they can ask if their husbands are positive. One woman had seen her husband taking medicines for years. She finally asked him when he was dying (of AIDS) why he was taking them. “She said, ‘My tongue did not have the strength to ask before’.’’ But it was already too late.

“Most married women cannot even go to the bazaar alone,” says Prashant Bhonsle, social worker, Palus. Even after long years of marriage, they have no power to ask their husbands where they have been or what they have been up to. Nor do they have direct access to information. “In one case, after counseling at the PHC, a married woman who realized her husband was “going takatak” (having sex) with other women, insisted he use a condom,” says Bhonsle. “That was a day of big triumph for us.”

Quite often, married women who are HIV-positive, specially widows, are denied food, medicines, dignity - and property due to them. ‘What is the use - she’s going to die anyway,’ is the family’s logic. SANGRAM advises HIV-affected families to access free treatment at government hospitals for all diseases including HIV/AIDS. This ensures that women get treated. SANGRAM has also legally intervened in at least three cases to secure property that HIV-positive widows were being deprived of. In some cases, families have realized they can survive only because of the benefits accruing to an HIV- positive widow, and the tables have turned.

Gaining Access to Women Through Maitrins (Girlfirends)

Women in any community usually have the least access to information. But it is difficult to access women through schools, colleges, and at public meetings. Since women constitute a key constituency for the District Campaign, SANGRAM has evolved a special strategy to reach women and provide them information in a comfortable setting.

The maitrin programme recruits women from villages who can take on the role of maitrin or girlfriend. A friend is someone with whom one can openly discuss intimate matters, and this is the role that each maitrin fills. Each maitrin carries the message of HIV awareness to other women in her village, gets women together to attend village programmes and maintains close contact with a mahila sanghatika.