Bbc india smaller condoms12/13/2023 ![]() “Some men will wait until other customers have left before they will say anything. Some customers, though, hesitate to walk right in. ![]() “Newly married couples, especially from other parts of India, are surprised to find a store like this on the main street,” says Kerkar. The store is also popular with honeymooners - no surprise, since Goa state is one of India’s top destinations for newlyweds and domestic tourists. They can browse through the products at leisure, ask us questions, compare products - all without judgment or embarrassment.” “Condoms are available at all pharmacies and supermarkets, but the locals feel more comfortable walking in here. “Our store is not just for selling HLL products but also provides education and information,” says Kerkar. It is a quality that holds him in good stead with his customers, who often want advice more than products. Kerkar is an affable young man who immediately puts me at ease. “Our customers are college girls and boys, housewives, people above 50,” says Nitesh Kerkar, the manager of the showroom. There are no other customers, which brings me back to my first thought about the place: In a country like India, where sex is still a taboo topic, who would walk into a store like this? Feeling awkward, I push open the glass doors and step into the small, air-conditioned room. I walk toward it imagining the looks I’m getting from the men hanging out waiting for their bikes to be fixed. ![]() Buffered by a motorcycle repair shop on one side and a jeweler on the other, this brightly lit store with its distinctive logo - the shapely ‘o’s of Moods intertwined - seems incongruous. "Many times they come and talk to our social workers about sexually-transmitted diseases, seek advice on treatment and where to get it and now some of them even attend our group meetings.The Moods Planet condom store is set on one of Panaji’s busiest streets. Mr Prajapati said: "People now don't hesitate to buy condoms from the ticket counter or the tobacco shop. To make condoms easily available at any time of day, social workers have also roped in small shops selling tobacco products outside the cinemas. In some theatres, messages regarding safe sex are printed on the back of the tickets and short films on the subject are screened before the shows. The condoms are either handed out by volunteers and NGO workers or sold at the ticket counter. "Here, we are reaching out to two major high-risk groups and we don't only provide them with condoms to promote safe sex, but also give them information about HIV/Aids and other sexually-transmitted diseases," he said. The cinemas in question charge 20-30 rupees (less than $1) a show - an amount most small-time migrant workers are able to spare.Īccording to Dinesh Prajapati, a member of the Sargam Manav Seva Charitable Trust, an NGO working on the project, many migrant workers who visit these theatres often pick up prostitutes hanging around the cinemas and take them inside the hall or to a cheap guest house afterwards. "We are already working with the diamond industry and the builder's association and when we realised that a lot of migrant labourers were coming to these cinemas to watch porn films, we got in touch with these cinemas." "In our attempts to spread HIV/Aids awareness, we study where our target groups live, the places they visit," Mrs Bhatia told BBC News. Since they decided to target audiences at theatres showing pornographic films, the results had been more than encouraging, she said. Snehlata Bhatia, project manager of the programme at Surat Municipal Corporation, said the state could be described as a "middle prevalence" state. ![]() Gujarat is not a high HIV/Aids prevalence state, but in its 2004 estimates, India's National Aids Control Organisation (Naco) said there had been a significant increase in the number of cases being reported in the state. ![]() Surat has a large number of migrant labourers who come to the city to work in its diamond and textile factories. They say research shows that people considered to be from high-risk groups frequent these cinemas. Officials in Surat, a city in western Gujarat state, say the idea is to spread awareness about HIV-Aids. Condoms are also being sold at tobacco shopsĪ year after a programme was launched to sell condoms at theatres showing porn films in India, health officials say the response has been overwhelming. ![]()
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