AIDS strikes India-Bangladesh trade

P K Bhattacharjee in Calcutta

The AIDS virus is threatening trade between India and Bangladesh as truckers carrying exports from India frequent several brothels along border check-posts, pick up the disease and then spread it as they move deeper into both countries.

The matter was recently taken up by the Bangladesh high commission with the Indian government. The concern is likely to overshadow other bilateral trade issues like the sharing of the Ganga waters and a transit route through Bangladesh for connecting India's north-eastern states with the rest of the country.

Several Bangladeshi non-governmental organisations are putting pressure on the government to bring the situation under control if the country is not to be pushed to the brink of a health disaster.

Seventy-five kilometres from Calcutta is Petrapole in the Bongaon subdivision. Through this border post passes over 40 per cent of India's land-route exports to Bangladesh. Every day thousands of trucks line up at Petrapole, waiting sometimes up to a week for customs clearance.

It is at such posts that prostitution thrives on the boredom of thousands of truckers' long idle days.

"For the price of a kilo of rice you can get a woman here. And if you pay a little more, you can get even a 12-year-old," a Petrapole local rattles of matter-of-factly.

On dusk, women and minor girls from adjoining villages gather at the check post. Soon saris or pieces of cloth are seen fluttering from every nook and cranny, an invitation to buy cheap sex.

An All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health survey claims every member of this mobile community of truckers has at least two sexual encounters each day.

Business is brisk and finished in either roadside bushes or the vehicle itself. And the police is quite eager to turn a blind eye for a price.

A senior AIIHPH officer told Rediff On The NeT, that the Indian border state of West Bengal is also perturbed by the situation. AIIHPH has been working against AIDS in Sonagachi, the largest red-light district of Calcutta.

Petrapole, in particular, is expected to be the main source of AIDS which is estimated to afflict over 10 million Indians by the turn of the century.

The Bangladesh government is reported to have demanded of India, that all people carrying export consignments from India would not be allowed to cross the border unless they have a current health certificate from a government agency.

But issuing health certificates all the time could become impractical given India's poor health infrastructure.

An AIIHPH officer said the only remedy seems to be a more efficient customs bureaucracy so that the truckers's waiting period could be done away with. No customs delay would mean no clientele for prostitution, he said.