Indian prince gives boost to HIV prevention campaign
Updated
India's first openly gay royal is visiting Australia, as part of his HIV/AIDS prevention work in the Asia Pacific region.
Crown Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, from the Princely state of Rajpipla in Gujarat, made world headlines when he came out as a gay man in 2005.The Prince's coming out set off public debate in India on gay rights, especially the decriminalisation of homosexuality in India.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Crown Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, from the Princely state of Rajpipla in Gujarat in India
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MANVENDRA: Yes, basically I have been invited by ACON, which is the leading organisation who are working for HIV prevention work and my visit to Australia is basically to share my experiences in India, what we have been doing for HIV prevention amongst the MSM community through my organisation Lakshya and to get some information from Australia as well in the same field and to learn some things from the success stories here.
LAM: Prince Manvendra, you have been doing HIV prevention and advocacy work in India for some time now. What's your assessment of the situation there and let's begin with education and prevention, how is India doing?
MANVENDRA: I think after I came out, there has been a lot of discussion on homosexuality in the country and I would say that media played a really important role in the kind of educating or sensitising the society, especially the homophobic society who are not in the first place even willing to accept the fact that homosexuality has been existing in India since the by gone era and I feel that through our advocacy programs, especially amongst the people who intend to influence the society and even the policymakers or the law enforcing authorities, for example, the police and the government officers. We have observed that people have started to accept us slowly, slowly and they are trying to understand our issues and our problems in a better manner now.
LAM: And do you think a social and sexual openness in India is tied in intimately with HIV prevention?
MANVENDRA: Yes definitely, I mean in India, we have this law which was criminalising the homosexual act and because of that, and society's mind set and the taboo existing in homosexuality, people are not coming out that openly and talking about themselves and that's really creating an obstacle for HIV prevention in our country.
LAM: Well, you mentioned the criminalisation of homosexuality. The Delhi High Court decision in July, for instance, that declared as unconstitutional local laws banning gay sex between consenting adults. What impact did that ruling have on HIV Aids prevention and advocacy?
MANVENDRA: Well, we have been saying this from the beginning that this law has been a major impediment toward HIV control in India, because basically this law has not been used much. It has been misused more than that and especially by the police, because when we go on the field work to distribute condoms for safe sex practices, we have had instances of police beating our staff and arresting them and even exploiting them and threatening them with dire consequences. So because of this, people, there is a scare amongst the gay community and people are not kind of even talking about being gay and the unsafe sex practices are also going on. So this law now that the High Court has made this historic judgement. I am sure it is going to open the way for a lot of young men to come out and to be confident about their sexuality and that's going to really lead to better safer sex practices in our country.
LAM: And are India's gay male communities still the primary group of HIV-Aids affliction?
MANVENDRA: Yes, amongst the core population, that is the high risk behaviour population in India, the MSM community as we call it, the Men having Sex with Men, they stand at a top priority for the country as well.
LAM: And Prince Manvendra, to what extent is male sexuality tied in with HIV-Aids prevention? For example, is it harder to impart the HIV-Aids to heterosexual males?
MANVENDRA: Oh well, we have been working with gay men, so we have found that there are a lot of misconceptions even amongst the heterosexual about HIV, because one of our studies have shown that men in India feel safer to have sex with men, rather than women, because they think that women they will be infected with HIV, whereas if they have sex with a man, there are less chances of getting infected. So there because of these misconceptions, we are trying to sensitise even the other men in India, whom we call the circumstantial homosexual men who take advantage or rather an opportunity with other men and they have homosexual sex with other men.
LAM: So obviously, the safe sex message is not going out there in the community?
MANVENDRA: Yes, the safe sex message is of course targeted towards the gay community, because we work for the gay community in particular, but we have to deal with the other issues. Because in India we have this special population which is called the migrant population. There is a lot of migration happening within the country from one state to another in search of employment, so a lot of the men who are they are not necessarily gay, but because they do not live with their families, and their biological needs are to be fulfilled, so they end up in having sex with other men. So we have to target that population as well.
LAM: And just briefly, what about the Asia-Pacific region, you have done some work there? HIV Aids is obviously still a major health issue in many of these countries. What would you say should be the main focus of prevention?
MANVENDRA: Yes, I have been on the board of APCOM, which is Asia Pacific Coalition On Male Sexual Health and I think one of the major issues which I have observed is education, educating the youth in the schools, colleges. It's very important for us to tell the youth what is HIV and even the issues of homosexuality should be discussed whenever the right age arrives.
