India's explosive AIDS epidemic is being fuelled by
widespread abuses against children who are affected by HIV/AIDS, Human Rights Watch
said in a new report released today. The Indian government's failure to address
these abuses is undermining its anti-AIDS policy and putting millions of lives at
risk.

The 209-page report, "Future Forsaken: Abuses Against Children Affected by HIV/AIDS
in India," documents that many doctors refuse to treat or even touch HIV-positive
children. Some schools expel or segregate children because they or their parents are
HIV-positive. Many orphanages and other residential institutions reject HIV-positive
children or deny that they house them. Children from families affected by AIDS may
be denied an education, pushed onto the street, forced into the worst forms of child
labour, or otherwise exploited, all of which puts them at greater risk of
contracting HIV.

In India hundreds of thousands of children are living with HIV/AIDS, according to
official statistics. Children of parents with HIV/AIDS suffer in turn: many are
forced to withdraw from school to care for sick parents, are forced to work to
replace their parents' income, or are orphaned. Although the government has not
conducted studies to assess the number of children affected by AIDS, some experts
calculate that more than 1 million children under age 15 have lost one or both
parents to HIV/AIDS. The Indian government estimates that 5.1 million people are
living with HIV/AIDS in India.

Street children, child sex workers and children of sex workers, children from lower
castes and Dalits (or "untouchables") suffer even more as they also face other forms
of discrimination. Sexual abuse and violence against women and girls, coupled with
their long-standing subordination in Indian society, make them especially vulnerable
to HIV transmission. Girls are also more likely to be pulled out of school to care
for a sick family member or to take over domestic work. When living with HIV/AIDS,
they may be the last in the family to receive medical care.

Many children - and the professionals who care for them - are not getting the
information about HIV they need to protect themselves or to combat discrimination.
Fewer than half of all secondary schools offer any AIDS education. Those that do
teach about HIV/AIDS do so at an age when most children, especially girls, have
already dropped out. And the government is utterly failing to provide information to
millions of India's children who are not in school but on the streets, at work, in
institutions, in non-formal schools and at home. [Source: CRIN]