Rejected by family members

Catherine Martin comes from Mwepetha Village, Group Village Headman Bwanaisa, in the area of Traditional Authority Nkhumba in Phalombe.

She the fourth in the series of women telling us stories of abuse and militarism they have suffered upon declaring their HIV status as nations world over observe the 2010 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence.

Born on October 5, 1962, she got married in 1977. She has six children, but also takes care of one orphan.

“My husband died on 10 February 1999”, she starts her story. “I was prompted to go for testing because I was frequently getting sick. I used to suffer from malaria, knee swellings…And a friend of my late husband used to scoff at me saying I had contracted HIV from my husband.”

However, it was not easy for her to test for HIV. “Previously we had problems here in Phalombe. One needed to pay in order to get tested for HIV”, she recalls.

“I had to contact Likurezi Support Group and they sent their volunteers who took me to hospital and paid for me. Results of my test showed I was HIV positive and I was counseled right away on how to live my life healthily.”

So what went wrong?

“I started facing problems right from within my family. It all started when I declared that I was HIV positive during one public campaign in our area. I was shown on television declaring my status and calling on people to go HIV testing.

“This did not please my brother. Apparently he felt embarrassed by my confession and hired some people who were showering insults at me every day in the village. The people used to shout at me that I was going to die any day and that my children will be made orphans.

“My son was angered by this tendency and he beat up my brother. He (the brother) reported the matter to the area chairman, but the story did not go in his favour. The area chairman told him in the face that these were longer the days to scold people living with HIV.

“He told that if the matter was to be reported to police he would be locked up because he had violated my rights. He advised him to apologize to me, which he promptly did. He also promised before our village headman that he would not repeat what he did”.

She says discrimination and stigma against people living HIV still continues in Phalombe despite numerous campaigns nongovernmental organizations and AIDS support groups are under taking.

“We go about conducting public meetings in areas of various traditional authorities telling people to stop discrimination against people living with HIV, but still there are some people who are stubborn who do not want to change their attitudes”, explains Mrs. Martin.

Apart from what she went through she says her group has also documented stories of many other women suffering various forms of militarism upon declaring their HIV status. “Some men refuse to use condoms when having sex”, she says, “This is gender violence”.

Limited economic rights

Another common form of abuse women are facing, according to Mrs. Martin, is the tendency where men take supreme control of farm proceeds.

“We see a lot of women and men working together in the garden during cultivation, but when it’s time of harvest and selling, women are victimized, they have no say on how the earnings should be utilized”.

Mrs. Martin also claims not all vulnerable women, ‘especially members of the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS’ in Phalombe benefit from the government funded farm in subsidy programme.

“Even when we write funding proposals to NGOs, we are rejected. Perhaps they think we cannot do development work because we are HIV positive”, she laments.

Health care challenges

According to Mrs. Martin, women living HIV in the area of Traditional Authority Nkhumba are facing many challenges in terms of access to health care.

“In the past years, we had a very few doctors and a very few HIV testing centres. Now the situation is improving, but still there are many problems. Many women are dying here because we have a single CD4 count testing machine. When it breaks down, it takes a long time before it is fixed”, she says.

Worst still, the nearest hospital, Holy Family, is a private facility.

“Sometimes when you go there you can be charged MK 300(2 USD) whereas you only have MK 100 (0.66 USD). And then when you decided to go the district hospital, you find that the prescription you have been given at Holy Family, is not available the public clinic. You have no choice but to leave without getting any medication”, explains Mrs. Kanthiti.

Making ends meet through peace works

“Four of my children are in secondary school. I have problems in finding money for their school fees. I do piece works, such as cultivating in other people’s gardens, to find money”, says Mrs. Martin.

“Sometimes, I am unable work because of illness and I tell some of my children to assist me, but what it means is that they miss lessons at school”.

She has been receiving support, of course, from Likurezi AIDS Support Organization since 2000 and, of late, the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (COWLHA).

She has been receiving beddings and medication from Likurezi, while COWLHA provided them with life skills training. Mrs. Martin says her decision to join a support group has helped to change her life in the sense that she is now more confident of her life.

“We encourage one another to fight on with life. Sometimes, I can leave my home with some qualms, but all these are gone when I meet my friends. We also go around campaigning against discrimination against people living with HIV”, she says.

A Call for Action

At Lukurezi, Mrs. Martin says, people with various problems pertaining to HIV and AIDS and gender based violence are counseled, her being one of the counselors.

“We target even those who are HIV negative”, she explains, “Some people think they are HIV negative because they’ve not gone for HIV testing, so we tell them the importance of under taking an HIV test and the benefits which we are seeing after knowing our status.

“If you go for testing, you are able to plan your future, but if you haven’t you do not know your status and you think everything is alright. We also target men. Men have a significant role to play in fighting HIV and promoting gender equality.

“For example, we teach men in this area to appreciate their wives when they demand use of a condom or a break from sex. Women and men are the same. They all get tired.

“Here we have a tendency of men who insists on sex even when their wives tell them they are not feeling well. If you say you have a headache, they would say, ‘it is only the head that is not feeling well and not the other side!’ So, these are some of the acts of male chauvinism we want to eradicate in this area,” explains Mrs. Martin.

To empower women, she says they must be given the opportunity to take part in various economic activities from which they can a living.

“NGO should approve proposals which we write to them so that we can fight the financial challenges which are facing”, she pleads, adding that: “I urge my fellow women to stop relying on men. Being HIV positive does not mean the end of life. We must engage into farming business and join support groups so that we can be self reliant and live a happy life.

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My Survival Story on ZODIAK Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).