Shillong, Nov 28: Meghalaya State Network of Positive People (MSNP) has expressed concern over sidelining them while the state is set to observe World AIDS Day on December 1.
Full text of the statement below
WORLD AIDS DAY 2025: “LET COMMUNITIES LEAD” … AS LONG AS THEY STAY SILENT
Date: 28th November 2025, Shillong, Meghalaya
The global theme for World AIDS Day 2025 — “Overcoming Disruption, Transforming the AIDS
Response” — asserts that People Living with HIV (PLHIV) must lead decisions affecting their lives.
Yet in Meghalaya, this theme has been redefined to mean: “Let communities lead… but only from backstage, and preferably without embarrassing anyone with the truth in front of the Hon’ble Chief Minister and Hon’ble Health Minister.”
Despite NACO’s mandate requiring Meaningful Involvement of PLHIV (MIPA), MSNP+ — the only recognized PLHIV network in the State — has not been given even a moment to speak at the official World AIDS Day event. Instead, we are expected to attend quietly as decoration — proof that the “community was present,” but never heard. Meanwhile, Meghalaya Users Forum (MUF) and MeduNet, who have worked for over a decade to support people who use drugs and PLHIV, are excluded as if their experience and expertise are a threat to the day’s script.
Stakeholders love to condemn discrimination in big speeches and on social media — yet what about the systemic discrimination happening right now from the very departments responsible for the HIV response? People in decision-making positions should hear directly from us, not through intermediaries who filter out the truth. The middlemen are not empathetic enough — they don’t live our lives, they don’t feel our reality, and clearly, they don’t tell our story honestly.
And here is the reality that is being silenced: Children Living with HIV are increasing, but for 11 months, MSNP+ has been pleading for support from Line departments with almost no positive response. Basic diagnostic tests, once free —baseline check-ups — are now disrupted, as if monitoring HIV treatment were optional. Lost-to-Follow-Up cases continue to rise. New HIV and Hepatitis C infections persist. In East Jaintia Hills, ICTC, STI and SSK staff are forced to counsel clients in rooms the size of store cupboards, where confidentiality is impossible. Even ART Ialong Civil Hospital operates in overcrowded, undignified conditions that insult both patients and healthcare workers.
But the preference seems to be:
Don’t talk about these disruptions
Don’t talk about children suffering without support
Don’t talk about collapsing services
Just talk about decorations, hashtags and photo opportunities
World AIDS Day was built by PLHIV demanding their voices be heard.
Today in Meghalaya, we are expected to bring our bodies to fill seats — and leave our voices at the door.
We refuse.
People who have not lived our lives cannot dictate our future — especially when they refuse to listen. Nothing About Us Without Us — Not Today, Not Ever.
This is not “transformation.”
It is oppression rehearsed as Observation!!!.
If Meghalaya truly believes in this year’s global theme, then overcoming disruption must begin with admitting the system is failing, and transforming the AIDS response must begin by handing the microphone directly to the community — not to those who “speak for” us.
MSNP+ will continue speaking for every child, every PLHIV, and every frontline worker who is forced to operate without dignity. We will speak whether invited or excluded — even if the system only hears us when we shout from outside the hall
And as the grand finale — the cherry on top of this absurd observation — the concerned stakeholders decided that the best way to “fight HIV” is to parade Celebrity Doctors, Fashion Models, and Influencers, instead of acknowledging the real warriors on the ground who keep people alive.
Because clearly, hashtags and catwalks have cured more people than Viral Load testing and
ART adherence, right? “Maybe next year, the virus will be intimidated
Issued by Meghalaya State Network of Positive People (MSNP)
