<p>The women of the backward district, 230 km from here, are demanding that their men, who have worked away from home, prove they have not been fooling with other women, much as Rama of mythology sought that Sita immolate herself to prove her purity for having spent years in captivity after being abducted by Ravana. When the men who work in the metros return home on holidays, the women demand that they get tested for HIV infection. <br /><br />“The men are not allowed by their wives to sleep with them unless they are assured that their husbands do not suffer from HIV”, according to district health officials. The officials said a large number of men from the district migrate to the big cities to make money. <br /><br />“Many of them work as labourers and drivers and several of them also visit brothels and in the process get infected with the dreaded HIV,” they say.<br /><br />Of the 11,000 people who were tested for HIV, around a thousand tested positive, the officials said. As many as 18 men died of HIV/AIDS in the past couple of years in the three hamlets of Semariyawan village alone.<br /><br />“The women know very well that they could also get infected by their husbands and that is why they have been insisting on the HIV test.....the men have no option but to get tested in order to prove that they have not strayed from their marriage vows”, the officials went on to say. Refusal to undergo the test brings with it denial of sex by the wives.<br /><br />“Money is fine, but we do not want to suffer like many others...what will happen to our family and if someone gets pregnant and delivers, the child will also have HIV”, said a woman from Semariyawan. <br /><br />For the simple and mostly illiterate women of these villages, for whom their husbands are no less than gods, to insist that they undergo an HIV test should seen as a measure of empowerment.</p>
<p>The women of the backward district, 230 km from here, are demanding that their men, who have worked away from home, prove they have not been fooling with other women, much as Rama of mythology sought that Sita immolate herself to prove her purity for having spent years in captivity after being abducted by Ravana. When the men who work in the metros return home on holidays, the women demand that they get tested for HIV infection. <br /><br />“The men are not allowed by their wives to sleep with them unless they are assured that their husbands do not suffer from HIV”, according to district health officials. The officials said a large number of men from the district migrate to the big cities to make money. <br /><br />“Many of them work as labourers and drivers and several of them also visit brothels and in the process get infected with the dreaded HIV,” they say.<br /><br />Of the 11,000 people who were tested for HIV, around a thousand tested positive, the officials said. As many as 18 men died of HIV/AIDS in the past couple of years in the three hamlets of Semariyawan village alone.<br /><br />“The women know very well that they could also get infected by their husbands and that is why they have been insisting on the HIV test.....the men have no option but to get tested in order to prove that they have not strayed from their marriage vows”, the officials went on to say. Refusal to undergo the test brings with it denial of sex by the wives.<br /><br />“Money is fine, but we do not want to suffer like many others...what will happen to our family and if someone gets pregnant and delivers, the child will also have HIV”, said a woman from Semariyawan. <br /><br />For the simple and mostly illiterate women of these villages, for whom their husbands are no less than gods, to insist that they undergo an HIV test should seen as a measure of empowerment.</p>