Mainstory: Spreading HIV intentionally

STEPHEN TUMUSIIME discovers those who knowingly infect people with HIV/Aids It’s early in the morning and I am heading to work. There is a terrible scene on the roadside of Kimisagala Nyabugogo road. Everyone is screaming and fighting to get closer to the incident. From a distance, where I sit in a moving taxi, I hear a man shout. “Oh my God, check the breasts.” I wonder what breasts he is talking about. A woman utters “Please don’t be shame us.” Curiosity gets the better of me. I jump off the taxi. To my surprise I encounter a nude woman. She is fighting with two men. “If you have never seen a tornado, today is your turn,” shouts Ann (not her real name). The crowd is now big. Women are pleading with Ann that she put some clothes on. “It’s hard to believe this. Our society is rotting. To see such happening, God forbid and I think the world is reaching an end,” says Uwineza, a woman who witnesses the scene. Cursing, Ann agrees to put her clothes on. “But they have to pay me my Frw20,000 for an affair they had with me. They will pay me or I am yet to do the most scandalous thing they will regret and pay dearly.” Ann is a prostitute and it seems the two gentlemen owe her money. The group is taken to the local authorities by a security worker. At Munanira Two head office, Ann is given a fair hearing by the sector’s executive. “What I want is only Frw20000 that I agreed with them. They will pay with their life if they do not pay me today,” Ann threatens. Once again Ann begins to take her clothes off, exposing her body. The authorities warn her to stop. She becomes so silent all of a sudden. She starts to sob. In a shaking voice, she says “you do not know what I hold on my heart. I know the deepest secret of that man. A secret of his health and yet his death secret.” No one understand. When asked to clarify, Ann says “I am a prostitute and I know it’s where I earn from. But I used to be so careful with my life. That man [pointing at one of them] once bought me from Planet Club at KBC at an escalating price. When we reached home I provided him with condoms to use. He hesitated and instead offered me more money to have unprotected affair with me. “I was drunk and had little energy to protest. He took advantage of it and had an affair with me in every style. I suffered the monster and couldn’t skip my fate. In the morning, he told me he wanted to swallow some tablets. When he went out to fetch himself water, I checked in his coat but….but…” She starts to stammer and sob uncontrollably. She gathers up her breath and manages to speak. “Pulling out of the coat, it was ARVs that he had gone to swallow.” Everybody starts shouting, confusion sets in. Ann, looking devastated sheds tears as if she had lost the most loved one. Indeed she had lost the most loved thing. Her life. No one says a word. The two men look on embarrassed. The house gathers momentum again when Ann says, “I no longer care about anything what so ever case. What I want is my money,” she wipes the tears from her eyes. The sector’s executive looks on helplessly not knowing what to do. She later gathers herself and asks the self proclaimed prostitute to explain what exactly happened leading to the fight that morning. “They came and picked me as usual. This time my super customer says he does not want me, telling his friend in the vehicle to have every fun with me the whole night. I couldn’t refuse as long as there is money. It’s my job,” tells Ann. “I provided condoms to the man as has been my principle, but he refused. I wondered why I was caring much about him when his friend (one that was driving) passed [HIV] to me. He had an affair with me. I do not care if he was negative or not. He had to face it the same way I faced it.” John (not his real name) who had passed HIV to Ann looks on seemingly without any worry. When asked if it could be true, he says “I do not know when she picked the tablets from my pockets. I never check to know what I am missing.” His friend who appears to be drunk, looks on as if hearing that he had had an affair with an HIV positive person had nothing to do with his life. Maybe he was also infected or otherwise how would he easily have an unprotected sex with a prostitute? Wanting to know how this madness crops up, I went to speak to Jean Damascene Munyagashubi, programme manager for Rwanda NGOs forum on HIV/Aids. “Some people get to know that they are HIV positive and end up being wild and merciless to others. They are sometimes traumatised and sometimes may end up committing suicide. They may have lost hope in life and want to go with others.” Munyagashumbi further says that however a lot of people, especially amongst the rich, do not want to know they are HIV positive. And even those who do know they are reluctant to face the disease and adjust their behavior accordingly. “They will hide and will never come out for counseling services. I bet the two gentlemen who infected the girl ever went for any counseling.” Munyagashubi says that life can even be longer than you ever expected with HIV scourge. “People have lived with HIV for years. There is a man in Uganda who has lived with HIV for over 27 years. Here in Rwanda we have a woman who has lived with HIV for over 20 years. This is because they opted to live a positive life, the same such people should opt too.” He advises those who spread the virus intentionally, that they are making things worse for themselves. “As you continue contaminating others, you go on acquiring other types of HIV that will weaken you in a very short period of time.” Contact: tumnstere2008@yahoo.com