Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, March 06, 2010:
Organisations of the North Eastern Region of the country working on HIV/AIDS Saturday came under one umbrella to advocate for the introduction and passing of the HIV/AIDS Bill in the Parliament.
The North East Coalition on the HIV/AIDS Bill was formally launched in a function held this afternoon at Hotel Classic here in Imphal Saturday.
The body will work jointly in pressing the Central government on passing the HIV/AIDS Bill which was finalized in July 2006 by the Health Ministry and submitted to the ministry of law in 2007. The bill, essentially an anti-discrimination law, envisages a detailed and careful planned strategy to address the HIV epidemic through an extensive prevention, care, treatment and support programme has been with the Law Ministry since July 2007. With an aim to put pressure on the government to table and pass the bill at the earliest through different advocacy initiatives, the National Coalition on the HIV/AIDS Bill was formed in May 2008.The coalition comprises of networks and civil society organisation from across the country working in the field of HIV.
The launching of advocacy aimed at to broaden this coalition and involve more network and civil society organisations from the North-Eastern part of the country, project director of Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit said.
Networks and civil society organisations, working in the field of HIV in the north east are gathering together to form the North East Coalition on HIV/AIDS Bill in a two-day long advocacy programme organised by the Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit in collaboration with Indian Network of Positive People (INP+) and Manipur Network of Positive People (MNP+).
Human rights violation of people living with HIV/AIDS take place in several forms, he said adding that they are denied or terminated from jobs, denied treatment in hospitals.
Children are denied admission in schools just because their parents are HIV positive and women increasingly face violence and neglect.
"HIV/AIDS has long gone past being merely a medical problem but is now an issue that has deeply penetrated the social economic, psychological, medical and the human rights milieu," he went on observed stressing the need of the enacting a law to protect the rights of the people living with HIV or affected by it.