Shreepal Saptasagar
UNICEF Intia - Hiv-aids-työn koordinaattori
July 1, 2008
The Story of Vasanti
26-year-old Vasanti Shinde is a young widow who lives in a slum near Sangli in Western India’s state of Maharashtra. Vasanti was married when she was 12 years old. She now has three daughters aged between 6 and 9. Life changed forever for Vasanti when her husband, an auto rickshaw driver, died of AIDS. Vasanti’s in-laws blamed her for their son’s death and she was thrown out of their home. Her brother sheltered her, and her sister, a nurse, gave her psychological support and convinced Vasanti to get tested for HIV. Unfortunately, the test result revealed that she was HIV-positive. Vasanti became very depressed. She was worried about her three daughters, one of whom was also diagnosed with HIV. Vasanti is one of many girls in our country who fall victim to the early marriage tradition.
Girls are married young often due to poverty, dowry pressures, parental concerns about pre-marital sex and pregnancy. Adolescent married girls have many disadvantages related to their health and their social and economic spheres. They also have limited ability to negotiate their reproductive lives and broader lives including the needs of their children. The younger the bride the larger the age gap with her spouse. Older males are more likely to be sexually experienced and may thus have an elevated risk of being HIV-positive.
I met Vasanti during an HIV prevention programme at the Yerala Projects Society (YPS), a non profit organization working in the field of HIV and AIDS with support from UNICEF India. At the time, she was very agitated and wanted to end her life. We referred Vasanti for counseling and she received anti-retroviral drugs at the local government hospital. To help her earn her livelihood and support her family, YPS assisted her in securing a part time job as a counselor. As part of her new job, Vasanti followed a UNICEF promoted peer adolescent life skills training. Thanks to this training, her outlook on life started to improve. Today, Vasanti is a field supervisor at a UNICEF programme for young people where she conducts sessions on ‘Capacity Building for people living with HIV and AIDS’. Vasanti commutes 14 kilometres each day, riding a bike from her house to work and back again. She says she doesn’t mind the journey because the exercise keeps her fit, increases her food consumption and helps her digestion. YPS also supports the education of her three daughters. During her free time, Vasanti works as a peer educator, positively touching the lives of many HIV positive people. She likes her new line of work which she says feels “like coming to mother’s house everyday”. Vasanti has come a long way; she has now become a very confident person who is open about her HIV status.
This is the story of Vasanti. Across India, there are hundreds of thousands of Vasantis and tens of thousands of children who are affected by HIV and AIDS. People in need of psychological support, social support; people in need of a helping hand.
