Under Indian law, it is illegal to make claims for diseases that contemporary medicine deems incurable (such as cancer and HIV/AIDS) unless it is scientifically tried and tested, and conclusively proven curative.

Because of the stigma and discrimination suffered, people are more and more numerous to be tend by the quacks who are taking advantage of the situation by promising cures and defrauding unsuspecting people who are infected with these types of virus of large sums of money. The survey conducted in Bhopal by the JusticeMakers team along with discussions with the Madhya Pradesh Network of People living with HIV/AIDS (MPNP+) showed that many quacks in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka are claiming to provide treatment. And a large number of people are running to “babas” and others offering spiritual cures.

It was the case for this woman: Adhira (not her real name) who came to a doctor in Maharashtra after seeing his advert. This doctor had already been held accountable in many other cases but continued to practice despite the court orders.

Scams operated by doctors are well developed. Once a person is tested HIV positive, he is normally put on a 6-month medication after which another test is conducted called P 24 test – P24 being an antigen produced by body when HIV infection starts and gradually goes down–. When the P24 test is again done 6 months later, it shows that the person is cured from HIM and the people are duped. During this time, a huge amount of money is taken from the patient.

Even if the situation is still deeply worrying, some truly optimistic actions have been seen recently in India to fight this phenomenon.

In January 2007, the Supreme Court ordered Kerala-based T.A. Majeed to stop manufacturing, marketing, selling and distributing Immuno-QR, a drug that he claimed cured HIV/AIDS. Patients groups had been fighting the case since 1993.

IBJ’s involvement helps sick people not to be scammed by these quacks and helps them fight against discrimination and stigma imposed by the Indian society because of their illness, through prevention campaigns and significant support to patients.

JusticeMakers fellow in Bhopal, Garima Tiwari spoke about her project, about corruption and discriminatory practices in jails (medical facilities/visitation rights in prisons) during the National Consultation on legal Aid in prison on April 2013 with Ajay Verma (IBJ fellow India) organized by the Human Rights Law Network in Delhi.

With the common action of JusticeMakers fellow: Garima Tiwari and of the entire team of IBJ’s India, IBJ hope to actively help people against stigma and discrimination, reintegrate them into the community and offer them all care they deserve.

Para la versión en Español, haga click aquí. 2011

JusticeMakers V.M. Quiroga Pando

Verónica Marisol Quiroga Pando is one of the winners of the 2011 JusticeMakers competition organized by International Bridges to Justice. She graduated in Law and specialized in human rights, and she currently works at the Universidad Franz Tamayo in La Paz as a Professor of Human Rights, as consultant on gender and human rights for the Ombudsman, and as a coordinator of women, among others. She has participated in and conducted numerous training workshops in hopes of eradicating the discrimination of female inmates. Furthermore, she also provides them with free legal representation and ensures access to justice that otherwise is not provided by the State.

Verónica emphasizes the sad reality of the female inmates and says that the moment she entered the penitentiary centers, she realized how this group was excluded by society. She has witnessed all the reports from the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and they did not say much about the situation of discrimination and violence that female inmates face. She has plans to conduct advocacy work at the Ministry of Justice to make sure that the next report from CEDAW will have a long section that mentions the situation of these women. In addition, she will continue to work with feminist organizations and use best practice examples from other activist groups in South America to serve as a model for the Bolivian justice system.

There are many female inmates in Bolivian prisons who do not have access to legal representation. Veronica hopes to be able to represent at least 10 women and additionally provide  support to a number of other women by collecting pieces of evidence that  might benefit them at trial. Verónica has already handled a number of cases in order to help female inmates in Bolivia and thanks to her efforts, many women have had a fair trial.

One example of this was the case of defendant B.N. (a rural immigrant woman), arrested in 2009. Together with her five children she is remanded in the Women’s Counseling Center as is accused of covering up for the abuse to her oldest daughter by her partner. During the investigation of this case, Verónica has discovered that B.N. had not reported the abuse, because of the high degree of domestic violence she was facing herself. It is an unfair situation to have her in remand for two years already, without a trial. Veronica is now providing legal representation to B.N. an is preparing a request to get B.N. and her children released from pre-trial detention.