Shreepal Saptasagar
UNICEF Intia - Hiv-aids-työn koordinaattori
October 1, 2008
HIV-Positive Children Denied Local Schooling
“I know I am going to die soon, but before I breathe my last breath, I want to enter a class room and sit with boys and girls of my age. I want to feel how it is to sit in a classroom”.
These were the words of 12-year-old Geeta (name changed), an HIV-positive girl who was not allowed to attend her local school here in Sangli district. Looking at me with tearful eyes, Geeta was explaining this to me when I met her along with a press reporter in her hostel campus. She was one of 40 children there who were denied schooling in the Yashwantnagar suburb of Sangli city in India’s southern Maharashtra state.
Geeta became an orphan a few years ago when her parents died of HIV-related illnesses. Along with the other school-aged children at the non-profit special hostel for children living with HIV, Geeta has had to learn her alphabet and numbers within the four walls of the hostel. The children are shepherded once a year to an isolated examination hall in their respective schools to appear for the annual exams.
The local school authorities do not talk about this issue, but a teacher, who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, told us that parents of other children “won’t allow HIV-positive students to share the same room as their own kids. They have put immense pressure on the school management to keep them out,” he said.
With my persistent interventions and the support and follow up of the UNICEF Mumbai office, we were able to take up the issue with the district administration and reinstate these children back into their schools. We also took it up with the state government’s education department to prevent further such incidences. There was a similar case in Kerala state in southern India but after public outcry and a warning from the state government, the children were allowed to return to school.
These are just a few cases to surface and which were resolved thanks to collective efforts, but there are tens of thousands of children who are being denied their basic rights of health, education, shelter and food.
We, the people working in the field can only do so much without your moral and financial support to help these children in difficult circumstances; together, we can make a difference. “For children, school is the best place to work”.
