Promoting safe sex with food

An NGO in Assam offers cheaper foodgrain to sex workers in exchange for a promise to use contraceptives.

The North-East Society for the Promotion of Youth and Masses (NESPYM), a non-governmental organisation, has given others food for thought when it comes to checking the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Working in highly vulnerable Assam, the NGO, as part of a pilot programme, will distribute foodgrain to sex workers at prices lower than the market rate, provided they promise to use contraceptives. It has been working among drug addicts and HIV/AIDS patients for more than a decade.

"Mere counselling cannot convince sex workers to abstain from unprotected sex," said Chiranjeeb Kakoty, the director of the NGO, which works with more than 500 sex workers.

The sex workers who are willing to accept the deal will be given a "Sathee" card and will have to undergo regular medical check-ups at NESPYM camps. Thereafter, any sex worker contracting a sexually transmitted disease will be denied the benefit.

The NGO has also opened centres to provide informal education, vocational training and nutrition to the children of sex workers. Further, a nominal stipend is being offered to the mothers of such children to ensure regular attendance.

The NGO also planned to target drug abuse, which it felt was one of the biggest reasons for the spread of AIDS in the region, said Kakoty.

Founded in 1991 by a group of doctors to check drug abuse and alcoholism, the NESPYM also runs a 15-bed drug de-addiction centre, the first of its kind in the state. "We get patients from all North-Eastern states, West Bengal and also from places as far as Uttar Pradesh," Kakoty said.

Though most of its projects and programmes are partially funded by the Assam State AIDS Control Society and central ministries, fund scarcity remains a big problem, especially for its latest plan to start micro-insurance for sex workers.