"Father Mother & their two children suffering from AIDS".
What bothered all of us was that each and every detail of where he lived, what he did, and how he got himself infected with the virus is detailed out in that column.In Orissa past experience with HIV/AIDS has been horrible.
I remember there was an incidence in Ganjam (a high prevalent district), where a young mother, whose husband died of AIDS related disease was tied to her cot and burnt by the villagers, a young man who had died of AIDS was not given a decent cremation because of his HIV status. These are some of the common incidence that have been regularly occurring in Orissa. One needs to question media as to whether these kinds of sensational news will aggravate the situation or not, whether they have maintained all the norms (e.g taking permission from the family (written permission) before publishing this human interest story, Whether consequences of such kind of publication has been discussed with the family, has confidentiality been taken into account while writing about how, what action of his resulted in him being a HIV+.
I am presuming that no such initiative has been taken before exposing the family to discrimination. I do hope individuals and community members come together to address media insensitivity which harms the common man and exposes them to discrimination.
2 comments:
This is not the first time that media has reported like this, we civil society don't react to these kinds of news, because we don't care what happens to PLHA or gays, or even poor women, a poor naked women will be lying on the road and everybody will see her but not pick her up or do anything for her, it is like a dog hurt on the road, none of us stop or help. SO we don't care if someone is reporting wrongly or misrepresenting issues. What should done to ensure that media gets it right, we know but NGOs will not do anything as they are scared that their funding might get closed. So friends we will see more of this in the future, respond to this in some web page but not react. Life sucks for those who do not have money or power or friends in high places.
I am a teenager and i haven't got much exposure to this topic but my mother has taught me that each and every one in this world are equal and it is shameful that the society does not accept them.The media doesn't really want to help the minority rather they only want to increase their channels publicity.It would be better if we start helping the weaker sections of the society.
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