Besides language and other technical skills, call centre employees across India will soon be taught how to avoid the risk of AIDS.
BANGALORE: Besides language and other technical skills, call centre employees across India will soon be taught how to avoid the risk of AIDS.
Considering that one-night stands and relationship-hopping are the order of the day in these establishments, the call centre managements are designing AIDS awareness programmes for their young employees.
The move comes in the wake of a recent joint initiative between Global Business Coalition (GBC), a worldwide conglomerate of corporates that fight against AIDS, and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Spokespersons of HSBC and 24/7 Customers confirmed the move.
GBC President and chief executive officer Richard Holbrooke says, “Fuelled by its growing IT and financial services industries, India’s call centres have created unprecedented wealth. Though an obvious economic boom, such growth challenges traditional society, creating social conditions that can promote HIV transmission.”
India is said to have an estimated 5.13 million HIV-positive cases, second only to South Africa. Experts say the situation is nothing less than alarming with the proportion of young adults between the ages of 20 and 25 years being large and a huge number of call centre employees frequently engaging in activities vulnerable to HIV transmission.
The Call Centres say that the programmes they design are to ensure that employees are well informed on the HIV related risks. “The environment in a call center is usually colourful and the youngsters of opposite sexes easily get attracted to each other,’’ says Megha Naidu, a call centre employee. “Also relationship hopping is commonly found behaviour,” she adds.
Condom manufacturer Durex has found after a study of “sexual attitudes and practices” among call centre employees that there is an alarming rise in the percentage of respondents who have had both multiple sexual partners and unprotected sex. Sociologist G K Karant in Bangalore says that a youngster in a call centre is more at risk than young people in other professions.
“It’s the environment that makes them tolerate any behaviour,” he says, adding: “Introducing awareness programmes on HIV transmission is definitely a healthy step towards controlling the disease. Talking about it at work place will make the youngsters conscious about the risks.”
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