Note from VA>blog editor:
The following refutation is followed by relevant articles about SANGRAM, (Sampada Grameen Mahila Sanstha) an Indian organization that works with HIV-infected women in prostitution.From: "Meena Saraswathi Seshu" <san_meena@...>
Date: Sun Oct 9, 2005 2:20 pm
Subject: India NGO says no to US Funds: Rejects Imposition of Conditions
Statement from SANGRAM
With regard to the article "US accuses NGO of 'trafficking'" by Rema Nagarajan in the Hindustan Times, Washington, September 29, 2005, we strongly refute the charge that SANGRAM supports trafficking for sexual exploitation.
SANGRAM has been working on HIV/AIDS prevention and for the rights of people in prostitution for more than a decade. We oppose trafficking for any purpose and believe it is a criminal offence.
We believe that the use of minors in prostitution is child sexual abuse. The thousands of women and children who have benefitted from our services and all of our actions and advocacy, which have always been subjected to public scrutiny, attest to our commitment to the end of the exploitation of trafficking.
The accusations leveled against SANGRAM in the article are completely and shockingly unfounded. The completely untrue character of these accusations can only lead to the supposition that they have been fabricated because SANGRAM works in favour of the human rights and empowerment of all women, including women in prostitution, which is an idea that is threatening to conservative forces in the United States and elsewhere.
The HIV/AIDS prevention programme of Sampada Grameen Mahila Sanstha
(SANGRAM) with women in prostitution is a peer-based initiative that seeks to motivate and empower women on issues concerning their lives and that of their community.
This intervention led to the formation of a collective of women in prostitution
called the Veshya AIDS Muqabla Parishad (VAMP) registered in 1996. In fact,
external evaluations conducted by the AVERT society strongly recommend that the SANGRAM project with women in prostitution should be made into a demonstration and training center, as a best practice.
This HIV/AIDS prevention programme with women in prostitution was also accepted as a best practice by NACO, UNAIDS, and UNESCO.
The renowned international organization Human Rights Watch recognised the work of SANGRAM and VAMP as an outstanding example of a human rights-based response to HIV/AIDS as it conferred its annual Human Rights Defender award on the SANGRAM general secretary in 2003.
The MOU between SANGRAM and Avert society [USAID] was terminated on mutual grounds because of SANGRAM's refusal to comply with the conditions imposed by the United States' Leadership Against Global HIV/AIDS Act of 2003. The US Embassy in Delhi has also confirmed in writing on October 6, 2005 to SANGRAM that, "funding was not removed from SANGRAM for trafficking in persons".
However we would like to state that we oppose the conditions and moral strings that the US conservatives attach to foreign funding, especially around HIV/AIDS in developing countries. India's HIV/AIDS policy guidelines as put out by National AIDS Control Organization [NACO] is explicit in supporting high risk groups including sex workers to combat HIV/AIDS. [read on...]
The above email message can be accessed online in its entirety in the following locations:
UNICEF Innocenti Recearch Center - Child Trafficking Research Hub
Note from VA>blog editor: Unfortunately some anti-human trafficking NGOs and organizations take our government's statements and actions at face value, if it suits their own agenda. This is from a page atFreetheSlaves.net:
After hearing allegations about the SANGRAM group in India, U.S. Agency for International Development has cut all funding for the group. SANGRAM was supposedly working under the guise of AIDS prevention, but many of it’s members were brothel owners, and the group was used to keep women in forced prostitution. This news was brought to the US government by Restore International and an investigation is currently underway involving SANGRAM practices.
[Relevant texts from a variety of sources as indicated]
via YouandAIDS.org - the HIV Portal for Asia-Pacific:
INTERVIEW - Meena Seshu, Director, SANGRAM (11/19/05)
"The risk of getting HIV is a gendered risk which places the burden of the epidemic on the woman."Can you tell us about your journey working on HIV/AIDS in India, and especially with women?
The HIV/AIDS epidemic has singled out people-in-prostitution and sex-work as 'carriers and vectors of the spread of HIV'. Apart from the stigma already attached to their work, society has further marginalised them as core transmitters of the HIV infection.
It fails to understand and recognise that they are but links in the broad networks of heterosexual transmission of HIV. And that they constitute a community that bears and will continue to bear the greatest impact of the HIV epidemic. Propagating the myth that people-in-prostitution and sex work are core transmitters of HIV serves the purpose of 'prostitution bashers' imbued with the moral and judgmental attitude that reinforces the prejudice that AIDS is an 'impure' disease that afflicts immoral and evil persons.
[read on...]
via Communication Initiative (09/01/04): SANGRAM: Some Background
Source
"SANGRAM: A war for all women", by Lalitha Sridhar. InfoChangeIndia News & Features, May 2004:
Launched in Sangli, India in 1992, SANGRAM (Sampada Grameen Mahila Sanstha) reaches out to women in prostitution in 6 districts in Maharashtra and Karnataka's border areas. Condom distribution is a central activity of this peer education organisation, whose goals include creating awareness about HIV/AIDS and methods of prevention, altering behavioural patterns, and enforcing preventive action.
Main Communication Strategies
This programme is premised on the notion that woman in prostitution are human beings and potential agents of change, not vectors or victims of HIV. Rather than holding women responsible for the spread of the HIV virus, SANGRAM's initiator sought to empower women in prostitution to protect themselves from infection. [read on...]For more information, contact:
Meena Seshu, General Secretary
Sampada Grameen Mahila Sanstha (SANGRAM)
B-11 Akshay Apartments
Chintamani Nagar, Sangli 416416
Maharashtra
Tel.: (0233) 2312191
Fax: (0233) 2311 644
[email protected]
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