Nearly 1.2 million people in Ethiopia are infected with the deadly Human Immunodeficiency Virus, also known as HIV. Women and young girls are particularly under threat because of social, political and economic discrimination. Women Talk Online reader Anne Marie Hankins stumbled across this piece of information when her co-passenger on a flight spoke about the plight of mothers in the African country.

Counsellors like Laxmipriya (left) have enabled several adolescent girls living in slums of Bhubaneswar to understand the merits of safe sex. (Copyright: Rakhi Ghosh\WFS)

Pooja Behara (name changed), 16, would probably have never realised that she was suffering from a sexually transmitted disease (STD) had Sabita Buta, a counsellor with a local non government organisation, not come into her cramped slum in Bhubaneswar, the state capital of Odisha, to talk to the adolescent children about HIV/AIDS and the importance of safe sex, sometime early last year.