Maharashtra:
Women shunned after contracting the dreaded HIV virus, a disease passed on from their spouses' unsafe sex practices, are victims twice over.
Now a controversial solution has been proposed by the Maharashtra government.
This includes compulsory pre-marital HIV testing, a solution suggested by a state-appointed committee set up late last year.
The solution, simplistic at best, was opposed once before when a Public Interest Litigation was turned down by the Bombay High Court in April 2006.
It was a decision based on guidelines laid down by the National AIDS Control Organisation, guidelines which state that:
- Nno one should be forced to undergo a mandatory HIV test
- An HIV test should not be a precondition for employment or to providing healthcare
- And in the case of marriage, a test can be carried out only if one partner insists on it.
But the debate rages on. Should the state protect one group's right to privacy or another group's right to life?