Targetted Intervention Project :- We have been executing Targetted Intervention Project for the last one year in Bageshwar district. This assignment we got from Uttarkhand State AIDS Control Society Deheradun. It is a programme which is guided and funded by National AIDS Control Organisation New Delhi. This is Targeted Intervention Programme which is monitored and trained by Uttarakhand State AIDS Control Society and Technical Support Unit ( a team from Future International Group). Our organization is working as partner NGO in Bageshwar district exclusively on Female Sex Workers.
On Going Project Targeted Intervention in a Glance:-
The National AIDS Control Programme Phase III (2007-2012) is being launched with the objective to halt and reverse the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India. During this phase the National AIDS Control Organisation will strengthen capacity, formulate policy and guide implementation to enable a decentralized response focused on local needs.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic came to India in 1986 when the first case of HIV was detected in Chennai. Since then, the number of infected people has grown substantially. Evidence shows that the epidemic is moving outwards, from high risk groups to the general population and from urban centres to rural areas. Increasingly youth and women are getting infected. The HIV epidemic in India is complex and heterogeneous, impacted by intricate and varied social structures. As a result, there is not ‘one’ HIV epidemic but ‘many’ concurrent and interrelated HIV epidemics each of which needs a localized and sensitive response. No state in the country is unaffected by HIV.
Focused attention on the High Risk Groups (HRGs) through targeted interventions (TIs) has proved effective in preventing the spread of infection. The prevention of new infections in high risk groups is a major thrust in National AIDS Control Programme III. The most effective means of controlling the spread of HIV in India is through the implementation of Targeted Interventions (TIs) amongst persons most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, such as female sex workers (FSWs), men who have sex with men (MSM) and trans genders(TGs) and injecting drug users (IDU).
The risk of HIV infection that a sex worker faces bears a high association to the context of sex workers’ realities and the conditions in which they work; the secret different understanding of what sex workers themselves perceive as risk. To get infected with HIV is just one of the many risks sex workers face. The threat of an unwanted pregnancy, physical injury or disability, STIs and HIV are even present. CSWs are often surviving in unsafe and economically unstable surroundings, which are associated with a wide range of different risks. This again is connected to a more or less calculated estimation of which risks to take and which not to take.
Sex workers’ vulnerability to HIV infection is obvious. Sex workers are involved in a variety of sexual activities to satisfy their customers. Though they prefer only penetrative vaginal sexual intercourse, they are forced to have anal, oral and even group sex. Thus, not only do women sex workers have to have multiple sex but sexual abuse and sexual exploitation are also very common.