Faith leaders must help change leprosy laws

A leading Christian development organisation is calling on religious leaders to help change social attitudes and discriminatory laws against people affected by leprosy in India.

Speaking to Lapido Media in advance of World Leprosy Day, Geoff Warne, General Director of The Leprosy Mission International, said that it is not enough to provide communities with information that leprosy is no longer to be feared.

“In some cultures people with the disease have to follow certain procedures which isolate them from the community.

“If community attitudes are to change, then religious leaders need to be convinced that the context has changed and that the attitudes that traditionally applied to leprosy, and to people affected by leprosy, need not apply today.”

TLM works amongst leprosy-affected people of all faiths and castes and says India now counts for more than half of all new leprosy cases in the world. Those affected are treated as untouchables because of the social stigma around some of the physical deformities and this is bolstered by legal discrimination.

Sadanand Bag, TLM’s Advocacy Officer in India, explained that there are at least 16 laws in India that discriminate against leprosy-affected people. They include bans on travelling on a train, obtaining a driving licence and contesting an election.

In addition, he explained how marriage laws dating back to 1939 state that a woman married under Muslim law can have her marriage dissolved if her husband is suffering from leprosy, a virulent venereal disease or has been insane for a period of two years. There are similar provisions in Hindu and Christian marriage laws. Leprosy patients are also required to pay very high premium rates under 1956 Life Insurance Act.

The discriminatory clauses are based on the Leprosy Act of 1898, enacted during British rule to protect society from infection when leprosy was considered highly infectious and had no cure. The Act was repealed in 1985, as research showed that the disease was only mildly infectious and completely curable. But the other laws remain.

‘Today leprosy is usually quickly cured, if diagnosed early enough. But in some communities the old fears remain,’ said Mr Warne, which is why TLM and other groups use World Leprosy Day – now in its 57^th year - to raise awareness of their plight and help them to provide these individuals with all the respect and dignity due to them.

The Supreme Court of India had ruled in September 2008 that barring a leprosy patient from contesting or holding a post in a civic body was neither discriminatory nor violated the right to equality guaranteed in the Constitution.

However, the court also said that the ongoing research on leprosy should impel the legislature to seriously mull over the need for such provisions in the statutes. The ruling was in response to a leprosy patient, Dhirendra Pandua, challenging his disqualification from a civic body in eastern Orissa state.

Last November, the Supreme Court of India admitted a petition filed by human rights lawyer, Brahm Dutt, seeking the repeal of discriminatory provisions in the 16 laws. But, says Dr. P.K Gopal, from the National Forum of Leprosy Affected Persons, the court is yet to set the date for the first hearing in the case.

Dr Gopal said groups working with leprosy-affected people also submitted a petition to the upper house of the parliament in December 2007 and that a review by the health ministry was underway.

‘It is our hope that the [health] ministry do its best to repeal discriminatory provisions soon,’ he said.