Boinu, now 29, is one of 236 female injecting drug users registered with the targeted intervention project of an Imphal-based NGO, Nirvana Foundation, which aims at preventing HIV among drug users. For two years, she has been coming here for shelter, medical checks or just to talk. Boinu has been a sex worker for six years, using her earnings to buy drugs, unable to kick her habit, and living on the streets with no family or social support.
There are hundreds of such drug users across the state. Among them are teenagers, teachers, mothers and–the latest victims–school girls. Their stories are important to India because this is a province where the country’s much-discussed but slow-moving emancipation of women is moving from theory to reality. But years of relentless conflict, stress and collapsing governance are nullifying these advances.
Life in Manipur is more challenging than in most Indian states. Manipur is half the size of Haryana, but its complexities are sub-continental. It has no more than 2.7 million people–twice the population of Goa–but it has more than 30 ethnic groups and tribes with conflicting aspirations, as many dialects, and about 34 armed groups, fighting either to secede from Manipur or India.
