The Asha Kiran Orphanage is the one looking after the five children. It is here that the children had to make do with private lessons at their charity home after the school had turned them away the first time.

Jacob Curien said that there was no stiff opposition from the school. but it was the parents who had taken it upon themselves to see that the five children leave the school.

“The school authorities have no problem. But the problem is with the parents. They say if we allow the AIDS affected children to sit next to their children, their children will also develop this disease,” said Jacob Curien.

Curien also pointed out that a few days back doctors from AIDS control society, district authorities, ministers, leader of the Opposition, film actors had come from Thiruvananthapuram came together to give out the message that the children are not dangerous to associate with. But the parents are not satisfied.

Parents know that they are not their children are not in any danger. But still they don’t want to send their children to this particular school. So what is it that should be done with parents like this – counseling or is the answer tough legislation?

“I don’t think it’s a punishable offence to withdraw my child for any reason from one school and put it in another. I think what schools and what society needs to tackle is why do people think in that manner,” Koshy said.

She pointed out that there are schools that do not admit poor children. Parents would say they want to put them in an air-conditioned school, and not where poor children were studying. “You don’t say you won’t admit those children. You keep them there and say I will keep parents who have the courage to come along with me,” she said.

Right Message

When Anjali Gopalan was asked if HIV positive children study in the same school with other children in other countries, she said, “In western countries, there are integrated programmes. HIV positive children go to regular schools because there was no reason to segregate them.”

She added that Koshy’s remark about schools need to be especially equipped to deal with children living with HIV doesn’t make sense. One can’t get infected from nosebleeds and children biting and scratching each other.

“Somewhere deep down I don’t think people are believing that the modes of transmission are only four – penetrative sexual contract, transfusion with infected blood, through needles and from mother to child including breastfeeding. There is no other way to get infected for crying out loud,” Gopalan said.

Answering whether tough legislation or counselling was the solution, Gopalan said, “Legislation is a partial answer because the problem is in the implementation. Thirdly we need counseling, better information to pass on to people. They need to no only understand but also believe in information.”