Fight HIV, Not Drug Users!

Dhojo Wahengbam, a filmmaker and drug-user activist from Manipur, was one of fifteen people who took part in the HCLU – INPUD Video Advocacy Training in Budapest last autumn. The excellent movie he has now produced was exactly why we held the training. We believe that there is no better way of raising awareness of the rights violations committed against people who use drugs, than by using the words of drug users themselves. In the movie, drug users talk honestly and bravely about how police round them up in street raids, and publicise their personal data in newspapers, how they extort all the money they have, how they beat them up or shoot them, and how local clubs and the mob carry out reprisals against them and their houses.

Watch the movie here:

We briefly interviewed Dhojo about his film and the situation in Manipur. (All pictures are taken from the film.)

Drugreporter: Dhojo, could you tell us a little bit about yourself, and how you ended up becoming a filmmaker?

Dhojo Wahengbam:  I am an HIV/AIDS and drug-user activist from Manipur, North East India, on the border with Myanmar. I have been working in the field of drug use and HIV/AIDS for the past eight years. The experiences and problems I have come across made me want to highlight the issues faced by people who use drugs and people living with HIV in Manipur. Film is one of the most powerful media to show the real situations we face in our day-to-day life, and the best option for reaching out to the masses. I was lucky enough to be able to attend the HCLU-INPUD video advocacy training program conducted in the month of October 2014 in Budapest, Hungary. I learned about video film production and editing from that program. I must say that I am lucky and thankful to HCLU and INPUD for giving me this opportunity and providing me the required knowledge about film making. Because of this training program, I have now been able to produce this film about rights violations committed against people who use drugs in Manipur, entitled ‘Fight HIV, not drug users’.

The situation of drug use in Manipur is very bad from every angle. Drugs are easily available in most parts of Manipur, young people are increasingly using them. The majority of people who use drugs have no idea of harm reduction, overdose prevention or safer injection. Many people die due to preventable overdose, and they share injecting equipment, such as cookers, water containers, or water to dilute heroin, which is very harmful and has a high risk of transmitting HIV, Hepatitis-C and other blood-borne viruses (BBVs). According to some independent estimates, there are more than 75,000 people who use drugs in Manipur, and of that number, 38,000 people injecting. There are various kinds of drugs available in Manipur, but heroin is very common, and the majority of people use heroin.

Manipur, with a population of 2.8 million, has an estimated 40,855 people infected with HIV, according to a 2012 report from the Manipur State AIDS Control Society. In some parts of Manipur, 92% of injecting drug-users are co infected with HIV and Hepatitis-C. The first HIV-positive case in Manipur was reported in February 1990, from a blood sample collected from Injecting drug users. The HIV prevalence rate among IDUs is very high in Manipur. According to the MACS report, 80.70% of IDUs tested positive for HIV in 1997. The HIV prevalence rate among people who use drugs in Manipur is one of the highest in the world.

Dhojo Wahengbam:  The law and order situation in Manipur has gone from bad to worse. Physical violence by police, ranging from beatings with fists and wooden clubs, to forcing confessions from people who use drugs, and extorting money from them, are common practice. During the 90s, many people ended up in jail for drug use, but things have changed now. The worst aspect now, is the police extorting money from people who use drugs and their families.

There are various forms of rights violation faced by the people who use drugs in Manipur. They are very often stigmatised, and are considered to be trouble-makers in society. There is a false perception among the general public, that all people who use drugs are HIV-positive and virus carriers. There is a feeling of hatred that it is the IDUs who are bringing HIV into Manipur and spreading the viruses. Chaining people who use drugs to their bed, or shackling them like animals, as remedies for forcing them into ‘normality’, were very common in the drug de-addiction centres in Manipur. Beatings, head-shaving, publishing names and photographs in newspapers, demolishing houses etc. are some of the major rights violations committed against people who use drugs by the public, and by anti-drug organisations in Manipur.

There are so many civil society organisations, local clubs and anti-drug organisations that have sprung up in Manipur, claiming to solve drug problems, with the slogan of “A healthy future”. Previously, some insurgents and armed groups punished people who use drugs by shooting them in the legs, but it wasn’t a successful tactic, since many people still went on using drugs. Now, the civil society organisations are torturing and punishing drug users by publishing their names and photographs in the print and electronic media. This approach has an adverse effect and leads to more harmful consequences among PUDs, since a majority of them have gone underground, forming a hidden population. People who use drugs stopped accessing NSEP and OST services, sharing their injecting equipment instead, and using infected needles and syringes, which leads to more spread of BBVs.

There are more than 70 NGOs working for injection drug users under the aegis of the state AIDS Control Society in Manipur. Most of the NGOs working for drug users are not distributing clean needles and syringes, which they are supposed to provide. According to some reports, up until July 2010, altogether 1113 IDUs were accessing OST (Buprenorphine) through nine centres run by different NGOs in Manipur. There is one Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT) centre at RIMS hospital in Manipur, and only 70 people are accessing a MMT service. The majority of the people who use drugs aren’t  even aware of the existence of treatment options like methadone.

Injecting drug use has been the leading route of HIV and Hepatitis-C transmission in Manipur. This transmission can be prevented, but harsh laws targeting drug users, and mistaken approaches by civil society organisations in Manipur, are impeding access to lifesaving services such as needle exchange and OST, and driving users away from help and accessing treatment. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985 needs to be altered or replaced. The NDPS Act has given the power of enforcement to various central and state law-enforcement agencies, and violates the rights of people who use drugs. National drug policy is also generally focussed on abstinence-based treatment programs, instead of promoting harm reduction. Policy-makers and our government need to introduce better drug policy to improve the health and human rights of people who use drugs in Manipur.

I didn’t have any script, or a document on which to base this particular film, because I am not a professional filmmaker. I was just utilising the basic knowledge about filmmaking which I got from the HCLU–INPUD video advocacy training program.  I normally carry a small Zoom video camera, to interview people who have witnessed or experienced various forms of rights violation. I didn’t even arrange appointments to do the interviews. I often visit various areas where drug-use is commonplace, to meet our community of people who use drugs, and I interviewed whichever users I happened to meet there. It took me around two months to produce this film.

Some of the challenges I came across in making this film, involved the financial challenge of travelling around to meet people, but I somehow managed to produce this film. If there is a zeal and enthusiasm in us to fight for our rights and help our community, then we can manage it somehow, whatever the challenge.

Dhojo Wahengbam:   Yes, as a drug-user activist, I would like to show my film to decision-makers and police, to make them hear the voices of people who use drugs, in order to become aware of the importance of protecting human rights and showing concern for the health of the people who use drugs. If I get the chance, I would like to do a campaign to make people realise the importance of promoting harm reduction, protecting the health and human rights of PUDs in Manipur. We need support from people to fight against BBVs. Punishing, torturing and harassing people will not bring any solution to the problem of drugs: instead, it leads to the spread of BBVs among people who use drugs, and then to their sexual partners. We are people like you, somebody’s father, mother, brother and sister; we also have our own responsibility to look after our own family. Many of us are the family breadwinners.

Thank you.

István Gábor Takács

Drugreporter