Acknowledgments

This report was written by Zama Coursen-Neff, based on her research in India in November and December 2003, and follow-up research from New York.  Lois Whitman, executive director of the Children's Rights Division; Joanne Csete, director of the HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program; and Iain Levine, program director of Human Rights Watch, edited the report.  James Ross provided legal review.  Arvind Ganesan, Meenakshi Ganguly, Veena Siddharth, Tony Tate, Nisha Varia, and Saman Zia-Zarifi also reviewed and commented on the report.  Alexandra Fisher, Fitzroy Hepkins, Andrea Holley, and Dana Sommers produced the report.  Vivek Maru and Geoff Long provided research assistance.

Human Rights Watch is deeply indebted to the following nongovernmental organizations and individuals:  the Council of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Kerala (CPK+); India HIV/AIDS Alliance; the Indian Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS (INP+); Dr. Jayasree A.K.; the Lawyers' Collective HIV/AIDS UNIT; Maitreya; Dr. P. Manorama and staff of the Community Health Education Society (CHES); Anjali Gopalan and staff of the Naz Foundation (India) Trust; the Positive Women's Network; Subha Raghavan; Durai Selvam and staff of Rural Education and Action Development (READ); Meena Seshu and staff of SANGRAM; Joe Thomas; Subhash Thottiparambil, Sex Workers Forum Kerala; the Thrani Center for Crisis Control; Dr. Koen Van Rompay, Sahaya International and University of California, Davis; World Vision; and the Y.R. Gaitonde Centrefor AIDS Research and Education (YRG CARE).  Human Rights Watch also thanks others who wished not to be named and the government officials who agreed to be interviewed for this report.

Most of all, we thank the many children and their parents and guardians who spoke with us.  Without them this report would not have been possible.

Finally, we acknowledge with appreciation the support of the Oak Foundation and the Independence Foundation, which support our work on children's rights; and the Ford Foundation and the Ladenburg Foundation, which provided funding that has enabled Human Rights Watch to pursue caste and gender-related research and advocacy in India.