WICO BANGLADESH
President Sadhya Biswas
Several government and non-government organizations staged colorful street marches and rallies and roundtables involving the vulnerable groups including youths seeking to generate mass awareness against the impending dangers of HIV/AIDS.
The day came as the country so far recorded 1,495 HIV cases, since its first detection in 1989, and 165 of them died already while the authorities said as far the HIV infection from "injecting drug users" (IDUs) were concerned it reached the epidemic level exceeding the 10 percent threshold level.
In one of the major programmes of the day, University undergraduates at a dialogue with mainstream newsmen wanted an effective and intensive media role in the prevention of HIV/AIDS as they identified huge mismatch between their expectations and services from media on the issue.
Media Initiatives for Public Policy (MIPP) organised the dialogue to mark the World Aids Day in the country.
The dialogue was referred to a field level survey in five districts, where 27 percent of the bellow 18 age group were found to have had pre-marital sex and only half of them used condoms.
Many of the boys of these age group approached commercial sex workers (CSW), one of the most vulnerable and high risk behaviour groups.
A separate study showed 80 percent people heard about HIV/AIDS, but only 21 percent of them knew what causes HIV and how to prevent the infectious disease. The F. A said sex is not the lone factor of HIV infection and "neither it is the outcome of any sin" as it is being generally perceived. The issue should be portrayed with an aim to remove the social stigma and taboos, he added.
In another such function Primary and Mass Education Adviser Rasheda K Chowdhury said the teachers and particularly the primary school teachers should play a pioneering role in spreading the AIDS awareness among the most vulnerable groups.
The Bangladesh National Commission for UNESCO in cooperation with UNESCO Dhaka Office and Nari Unnayan Shakti organized the seminar on the occasion of the World AIDS Day-2008 at BANBEIS Bhaban conference hall. The day, the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, is being observed this year with a ray of hope as the United Nations said the global HIV/Aids epidemic has been stabilizing, though not adequately, since 2001. According to UN estimates, Sub-Saharan Africa remained to be most heavily affected by HIV/Aids, accounting for 67 percent of all people living with HIV and for 72 percent of AIDS deaths in 2007.
"The rate of new HIV infections has fallen in several countries although globally these favourable trends are at least partially offset by increases in new infections in other countries," the report said. But as World AIDS Day is marked today, the fight against the disease remains stymied by inadequate treatment in poor countries and setbacks in finding an effective vaccine, experts say.
From our WICO's President in Pakistan, Ms. Shahzi Samad Kahan.
Women trafficking
Saturday, November 22, 2008
By our correspondent
PESHAWAR: A civil society organisation has prepared a bill to help save women from the trafficking and discussed the proposed document with the policy-makers, lawyers and members of the Non-Governmental Organisations to get their suggestions and recommendations to make it more viable.
The consultative working group meeting on woman trafficking bill was arranged by Noor Education Trust here on Friday to discuss the provisions of the bill with the participants who gave their suggestions for improvement.
After the introduction of the participants and the organisation, the participants were told that trafficking was recruitment, transfer, transport, harbouring or receipt, with or without, consent, fake marriages, false adoptions and kidnappings with a view to exploit women and children in bonded and illegal labour, domestic work, begging, sex-tourism, entertainment and prostitution for the benefit of traffickers and crime-syndicates.
The discussants were told that there were no accurate statistics available, but it was estimated that in the last 30 years, trafficking in women and children in Asia for sexual exploitation alone had touched the 30 million mark.
Both civil society members and the victims of trafficking have confirmed the increasing trend of marrying off girls from NWFP to men from other provinces, the participants were informed. They were told about the findings of the study conducted by the organisation in collaboration with the district partners.
Some of the main points of the study that were highlighted include district-based responses from the civil society members, awareness about bride price, kinds of people involved in the crime, ethnic origin of the clients, identification of traffickers and transaction modes.
Other information discussed was about the use of bride price money, written or verbal Nikah, parent’s presence at Nikah, purpose of marriage, victims age at time of marriage, marriage with consent, ethnicity of trafficked girls, reasons for trafficking and current residence of the victims.
The participants suggested that the word woman should be changed or replaced with female because according to a study, mostly minor girls were trafficked, so it would not be applicable to them if the bill came into force. The discussants proposed that punishment for trafficking should be life imprisonment and the crime must be cognisable.