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HIV +ve mom finally gets kid’s custody
A woman whose nine-years-old daughter was taken from her by a lower court and given in stead to her in-laws who threw her out because she had contracted HIV from her husband won custody of the girl after a Jaiur court ruled in her favour on Friday.
The woman was married in 1995 and contracted HIV from her soldier husband. When he died in 2003, her in-laws threw her out because she was HIV positive and refused to let the toddler go with her Hoping that the legal system would be less blinkered than her community and peers, she filed an application in an additional civil judge’s court seeking custody of her daughter. That, however, ws not to be. On september 17, civil judge and judicial magistrate Madhusudan Roy observed that she should not be given custody since she was HIV-positive.
“As the woman herself is HIV-positive, she will beunable to look after her daughter and it is also not in the latter’s interest. The young girl also does not have any problems living with her grandparents, where she is studying,” the lower court said. And going against convention, he also disclosed the identity of the woman.
The woman later approached the sessions court with help from activists where she argued that the lower court’s order violated Supreme Court’s 1999 judgment directing that the identity of an HIV-positive person must not be disclosed.
Finally, on Friday additional sessions judge Prithvi Raj stayed the lower court’s order. “The sessions court stayed the order and fixed the next hearing for October 11,” the petitioner’s lawyer Ajay Kumar Jain.
Civil rights lawyers said that after the woman was widowed, the family had waited for the soldier’s death benefits to come in before throwing her out.
Aids activists say the woman isn’t alone in her plight. There are more than 300 such woman in Rajasthan alone who are suffering silently and can’t afford the public humiliation or court fee.
International groups say that lots of women with HIV not only are allowed legally to keep their children but also have children as proper care during pregnancy ensures healthy babies.