The Sunday Mail
As the country strides towards achieving the 90-90-90 HIV targets by 2020, and eradicating the virus by 2030, stigma remains one of the stumbling blocks to attaining these goals. Our correspondent, Forward Nyanyiwa, writes a heart-rending story of his personal experience with HIV and Aids.
IT was my longest night ever.
A hyena’s laugh that echoed from a distance felt personal. It was as if the animal was finding joy in my misery, providing a fitting soundtrack to a horror movie I was being forced to watch.
The setting was Mukarakate, Murehwa, and my mother was on her deathbed (a reed mat).
For many moons, she had braved the virus (HIV) in silence — absorbing the relentless stigma alone. Almost everyone knew about the elephant in the room, but nobody dared to let the cat out of the bag. My mother had summoned all her remaining strength the preceding afternoon to open up to me. “My son,” she said, struggling to breathe, “I am HIV positive. I think I won’t make it to see tomorrow. Be good to those who will take care of you and don’t forget your siblings.”
The words were piercing. I gazed at her watery eyes and something told me to keep my composure. She was departing to the world yonder. I had lost my father four years earlier, sad memories were still fresh in my young mind, now this again. I panted and shuddered. It was too much for the fresh faced and innocent soul within my small frame. As all of the close relatives secretly congregated to see my mother’s final earth moments, after all of us (the children) had been force-marched to bed, I knew for certain that a new, unfamiliar beginning was on the horizon. As largely expected, my mother breathed her last just before midnight.
As is customary in rural Zimbabwe, when a person dies their body lies in state on a platform in the kitchen hut (chikuva). All the clay pots are supposed to be removed from the hut to make room for the corpse. Soon, a voice shrilled, ordering me and the other boys to partake the exercise. That is when I came face-to-face with the reality of stigma.
The rest, since that unforgettable night, is history. I wondered how my parents could have acquired such a disease, which brought ridicule, shame and torture to my being. Being an orphan is one thing, but being an Aids orphan is something else. Aids orphans are more often than not subjected to all sorts of inhuman treatment. I was one of the torch-bearers at my school. I knew that I could easily pass and get a decent job. Pass I did, but no exposure to get the job. Every time people asked my maternal grandmother about my identity, the discussion centred on one topic — Aids!
“Ndiye mwana wemusikana wenyu wekufa neshuramatongo (ls he the son of your daughter who died of Aids)?” Life became miserable such that socialising became difficult. Almost every village household would associate me with the “shameful” demise of my parents. My confidence hit rock bottom. Naturally, my grandmother played the pseudo mother role with aplomb. She was there for me and my siblings, navigating the terrain of hate speech and neglect with ease.
Still, there was a section in society that continued with the mental torture. It became scary to visit school mates and friends alike, there was vitriol all over. Society had its own version of HIV and Aids. It was a disease for people of loose morals, those who sold their bodies for money and slept with a plethora of sex partners. Society had no room for such outcasts.
I was unfortunate to have been a product of the “outcasts”. How terrible!
Now decades later, Zimbabwe is on a drive to meet the World Health Organisation (WHO) 90-90-90 Aids goals for 2020. It also seeks to eradicate the once deadly virus by 2030.
But by 2020, 90 percent of all people living with HIV should know their HIV status. Ninety percent of all those diagnosed with HIV infection should be receiving sustained antiretroviral therapy, while 90 percent of those receiving antiretroviral therapy should have viral suppression.
If we are to realise these targets, the country must deal with the stigma first.
HIV and Aids stigma remains the country’s number one enemy. If not emphatically addressed, it will undo all the positive gains the nation has achieved thus far.
Orphans whose parents succumbed to HIV and Aids-related illnesses are subjected to the stigma until their moral standing is badly battered. It is a sad reality that society labels the orphans as if they scripted their fate. Children are tossed between relatives and are of no fixed abode. They are made to hate their parents, even in death. Most talent is swept away because no one wants to take responsibility of the orphans. As a result, some orphans end up taking up drugs and prostitution to eke a living.
The same society is again quick to point out that: “It runs in the family, that is how their parents died.” Yet HIV and Aids orphans bear a lot of pain, desire recognition, yearn for love and cry for family life. All this is usually absent in their lives. As a country, we need to redefine our culture. We need to pick up the few remaining pieces and mend our cultural fabric. Aids is just a disease, let us support those infected and affected by it. The country is now facing another headache. There are new HIV infections among the youths, which is a worrisome development as we draw closer to the year 2020.
There is need to go back to the basics.
In terms of support for the affected ones, mainly children, the situation has been changing for the better. Several support groups have come on board and are running HIV and Aids awareness programmes.
Most orphans now have shoulders to lean on, which is sweet music to some of us who never had such.
