HIV victims strive for acceptance as stigma bites

They live in the shadows, veiled in secrecy like spies in Hollywood movies — except that, for them, there is little glamour in their furtive existence.

They are a group of Somali women who are living with HIV in a society that is deeply conservative when it comes to matters of sexuality and sexual morality.

In the expansive Eastleigh neighbourhood that they call home, deep-seated stigma has consigned them to a life of penury, shame, isolation and fear.

With no one else to look out for them but themselves, the women have formed a strong support network for their survival.

They watch each others backs and are careful about what they do and who they interact with least they get exposed.

The fear that they will be discriminated, isolated and stigmatised for their condition is an existential one.

LIFESTYLE

To make matters worse, their partners have abandoned them after duping them into sexual relationships.

They say that these men, who are Somalis living in the diaspora, come to Kenya full of cash and mesmerise local girls with their flashy lifestyles.

Most of them engage in multiple sexual liaisons with tens of girls before they take off and go back to wherever they came from.

“The men who come from Europe and America are heavily loaded. Women run after them because they like to splash money around,” Jaldesa Abdi (not his real name), who lives in Eastleigh, says.

"They are the cause of many marriages breaking up. They dupe the women, leave many of them pregnant and some with sexually transmitted diseases.”

For a society that abhors sexual libertarianism and values chastity before marriage, these developments come as a shock to the community.

The Somali community in Kenya mainly inhabit the counties of Wajir, Mandera, Garissa, Marsabit, Moyale and Isiolo. All these counties indicate a low prevalence rate of HIV infection.

ADDICTS

According to the 2016 Kenya Aids Progress Report, all these counties have a low prevalence rate ranging from one to 4.9 percent.

Abdi says the tribulations faced by the women are many and include being introduced to hardcore drugs and becoming addicts with no support systems.

The psychological pressure leads them to drink the codeine, a sleep-inducing and analgesic drug derived from morphine, and chew miraa which leaves them highly sexual and intoxicated, according to Abdi.

For these women, fate has dealt them a double blow; being heartbroken and infected with HIV in a highly-stigmatised society.

Habiba (not her real name) befriended a man who had come to Eastleigh though he does not live in Kenya. Soon they made their relationship official.

She got pregnant, but two months into her pregnancy when going for ante-natal visit, she was discovered to be HIV positive and put on antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to prevent mother to child transmission.

“Fear of being discriminated and isolated has stopped me from sharing this information with members of my family,” says Habiba who has been on ARVs for four years.

MARRIAGE

The moment Habiba told the man she was HIV positive he took off, blocked her number and she can no longer reach him on phone.

The same applies to Khadija who we find with a very bad cough and chest infection.

She loses breath as she speaks and cannot communicate in English or Kiswahili. Amina, the leader of their support group, offers to do the translation.

Khadija was also infected by a Somali man who lives in the diaspora. Soon after they met, a relationship blossomed that soon progressed into marriage.

Within a short time, Khadija found out she was pregnant. The man would leave Khadija once she told him that she was HIV positive.

Although her pregnancy did not survive, Khadija - who is weak from opportunistic diseases - says: “My biggest challenge is that I am not able to take three meals a day despite my being on ARVs and this is affecting me.”

SHUNNED

Amina, who was infected in 2007, is the coordinator of Somali Women Living with HIV in Eastleigh.

She was sickly for a long time when her family decided to take her to hospital for proper medical attention.

“As soon as they discovered that I was pregnant and HIV positive, they took me back home to Isiolo to die.”

She found herself facing discrimination, isolation and stigmatisation because of her status.

As a single mother, Amina took a major decision to come back to Nairobi and find a way of catering for her children.

Amina, who has a uterine growth (she shares scans), says it’s her neighbours who contributed money for her X-ray.

“I need about Sh400,000 for a surgery to be performed to remove the growth but I am unable to raise the money,” Amina says.

RELIEF FOOD

However, even in Eastleigh, she still faces challenges of stigmatisation. For instance, Amina would make mandazi and samosa to sell.

“One day a woman who used to visit the hospital where I picked my drugs from found me selling outside. She asked if that is where I was operating from and immediately stated spreading rumours that I was HIV positive.”

That day she never sold anything and all her customers took off leaving her with no source of livelihood.

Amina says even when relief food is being distributed, those Somali women known to be living with HIV do not benefit.

“One chief told us that the food is not for HIV victims, it’s for the food programme,” Amina says.

The women say they suffer because no one cares about their plight.

The situation is worsened by the fact that their community still remains closeted when it comes to HIV.

“The Somali hide the fact that we too can be HIV positive. They don't speak about it openly,” Amina notes.