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| Denim Club India - Newsletter |
| Denim Club India - a social and
professional networking place, for members of the denim community - brings to your desk well-researched
compilations in the form of articles and documents relating to the Denim industry, carrying information from
India and all over the world. |
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Vol. 1 No. 1 January 2010
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HIV & AIDS Awareness Campaign by Denim Club India
:: Part 1 |
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Denim Club India
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HIV and AIDS present a great challenge with the staggering statistics staring us in the face. Individuals, families and
communities are badly affected by the epidemic. HIV can affect anyone; however most of us still see it as someone else's
problem and for most part it is surrounded by silence. It is the responsibility of every individual to support the fight against
AIDS, more so for the industrial establishments to address HIV & AIDS issues at work-place. Some of us tend to think that we
are already sufficiently aware of the various issues relating to the prevalence and spread of HIV, and its impact on the socio-economic
scenario, and write-it off as something which of concern only for South Africa and Nigeria. Sadly, it is not so. And,
when it comes to the textile industry in India, which employs migrant labor in large numbers, the entire scenario starts
demanding immediate attention and action to fight the menace and check the further spread of the virus amongst the workforce.
What makes the whole thing more complex is the fact that there are no studies or ground level collection of data
relating to the prevalence of HIV amongst the textile industry work-force, and the figures have to be guesstimated based on
the surveys and compilations done in other contexts.
HIV and AIDS, left unchecked, can rob organizations of their work-force.
It a major threat as it has been globally found to affect the
most productive segment of the work-force, in the range of 15 to 49
years, as it :
- Interrupts work-flow
- Imposes huge costs on enterprises through declining productivity
- Results in Loss of skilled and experienced workers
- Imposes Costs of recruitment and training of replacement workers
The fight against HIV and AIDS has to be focused on two main fronts -
prevention and care. The need is to educate people on how to prevent
infection so as to check the incidence of infection, and sensitize
everyone so as to bring down the level of stigma attached to the People
Living with HIV.
Denim Club India has been running a campaign to promote HIV &
AIDS Awareness amongst multiple audience groups, and is looking
very closely at the Textile, Apparel and Retail industry segments as all
the three employ migrant workers in large numbers, and thus fall into
the high-risk category.
The male migrant workers - live as forced bachelors in their most
sexually active period of life. They regularly use the services of sex
workers in and around their dwelling areas, who are involved in such
relationships with a large number of individuals. The result is not
difficult to understand.
There are studies which have found that the migrant male workers are
major source in contributing to the spread of HIV in those rural areas
where the volume of male out-migration for employment is high.
We all know the special position of places like Surat, Amritsar, Thane,
etc. in the textile map in India. But we also need to know a little more
about the prevalence of HIV in these well known textile hubs.
Migrant Vulnerability - A Case in Point
One of the best examples in support of the theory of migrant
vulnerability to HIV/AIDS is presented by the equation between Surat
in Gujarat and Ganjam in Orissa, which are separated by the breadth of
India. .
Surat, a bustling industrial city on the west coast of India, has a
population of forty lakh people. Eighty percent of Surat's population is
constituted by migrants or descendants of migrants. Between 5 to 7 lakh
migrant workers in Surat and surrounding townships are from Orrisa,
situated on the eastern side of India.
The Oriya migrants are employed mainly in Surat's textile industry.
Large number of workers from Orissa migrate at a young age of 13 - 14
and continue to work in Surat till late 40s. Out of the approximately 6
lakh men who have migrated from Ganjam at a given point of time, a
vast majority i.e. 5 lakh men live and work in Surat. The migrant
economy brings Rs. 500 crore into Ganjam every year.
Unfortunately it is not just money which the migrants bring back to the
Ganjam district.
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