India s Population Is Not Illegal - 1226 Words

India s population is approximately 1.2 billion people. Out of those 1.2 billion people, there are roughly 2.1 million people that have HIV. India has the third largest HIV infections in the world. Because of the prevalence of the sex industry in India, the people most at risk are sex workers, men who have sex with other men, transgender people and migrants (truck drivers). According to the website I saw, there are 868,000 female sex workers and 427,000 male sex workers. Even though running brothels are illegal in India, sex work itself is not illegal. Due to stigma and discrimination because of the re-criminalization of adult consensual same sex sexual conduct, men who have sex with other men are at higher risk of not being informed†¦show more content†¦In fact, it is twice as high as males that inject drugs. Majority of females who are sex slaves inject drugs and that is why the transmission of HIV is so high amongst drug users and sex slaves. So, female sex workers who i nject drugs are more likely to test positive for HIV. The third category of people who are more at risk for contracting and passing on HIV are Migrant workers, mainly truck drivers. Because truck drivers are away from their homes and wives for extended periods of time, they turn to sex workers for sex. Truck drivers do not use condoms consistently, therefore, they get infected, go back home to their wives, and end up infecting their wives with HIV. Because of the prevalence of HIV in India, several organizations help aid in the fight against HIV. The National AIDS Control Organization is primarily responsible for implementing new programs in India to help prevent and stop the transmission of HIV. One of their main goals is to target these high risk groups and provide HIV treatment, education and support for them. For female sex workers that entails educating them on the spread of HIV, providing them with condoms to use to lower the rate of transmission to their male clients, who in turn the male clients will have a lower transmission rate to their female partners. There is a project designed specifically for men who have sex with other men and transgender people called Project Pehchan, which allows these type of individuals to get