Policy Framework to protect HIV/AIDS children from discrimination

New Delhi, July 31 (UNI) The government today launched a comprehensive National Policy Framework for Children and AIDS to protect children from acquiring HIV infection and mitigating stigma and discrimination faced by children orphaned due to AIDS on infected with deadly HIV.

The Policy Framework, a joint initiative of the ministries of Women and Child Development, Health and Family Welfare, Human Resource Development and Social Justice and Empowerment, would go a long way in mitigating the suffering of an estimated 70,000 children infected with HIV/AIDS of which about 19,000 have been identified and 6,500 of them receiving Anti Retro Viral treatment.

Launching the Framework, Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury said that prevention of stigma and discrimination to AIDS orphans and the access, affordability and availability of ART to all HIV infected children were the main aim of the Framework.

She said that with this aim in view an Integrated Child Protection Scheme has been launched in the Eleventh Five Year Plan to protect children from all kinds of adverse impact including HIV/AIDS epidemic. In the first phase, the Scheme would be implemented in five states -- Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Delhi -- this year. The Scheme would not only protect children From all kinds of stigma and discrimination but also provide them compensate the infected Children and their families.

Under the scheme, new shelter places would be opened up where children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS and those infected with the deadly virus would be provided the shelter and additional nutrition.

Moreover, steps would be taken to ensure their legal rights, as in many cases it has been noticed that children orphaned by HIV/AIDS are often denied the right to property.

It would also ensure that children were not denied their right to education as happened in the case of five HIV/AIDS infected children being thrown out of school in Kerala, Ms Chowdhury said and called for changing the mindset of people and making the social set up more sensitive to the needs of children and women, especially those in distress.

The government is planning to make a law to protect people affected and infected with HIV/AIDS from all kinds of discrimination, National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) Director General Sujatha Rao said. The bill, which is pending with the Law Ministry, will be hopefully presented in the Monsoon session of Parliament, she said and added that if not, it would definitely come In the Winter Session.

However, even in absence of the Special Law, the children and people infected with HIV/AIDS could be protected under the existing legal provisions like the Right to Education, she pointed out. Ms Rao said that the Kerala Government has shown the right way as it asked the parents of other children were insisting that the HIV/AIDS infected children be thrown out that if they want they could take out their own children from the school but the infected children would remain. Moreover, the school was threatened that if the HIV positive children were thrown out, the government grants to it would be stopped.

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