WUNRN
Bahrain - HIV/AIDS Discrimination
for Women - Most Infected by Husbands
By Suad Hamada
The 26 year
old who refuses to allow HIV to stop her from living her life to the fullest,
is bothered by the prospect of being forced to deliver her baby in a country
other than her own.
"I have
come to terms with artificial insemination and caesarean section (C-section) to
protect my future husband and baby from contracting the virus, but I cannot
accept (that I have) to deliver far away from my country and family
members," she told IPS.
Umbassil
contracted the virus a few months ago from her previous fiancée who initiated
unprotected sex. The two were married according to Muta'a or the temporary
marriage custom prevalent in many Arab countries, which does not have legal
sanction but is socially accepted.
She
discovered her HIV status only after she underwent an HIV/AIDS test, which is a
compulsory procedure for the government to acknowledge a marriage.
"It
(sex without condoms) is a selfish act by most infected husbands who don't
consider the health and well-being of their wives," comments Dr Somaya Al
Jowder, director of the National Programme of the Sexually Transmitted
Diseases. All Bahraini citizens infected with HIV are treated free under the
government-run programme.
A total of
42 women like Umbassil have tested positive in
Unfortunately,
says Al Jowder, most infected people here do not disclose their HIV/AIDS status
for fear of rejection.
In
Infected
Bahraini women face far more discrimination than the men who are responsible
for bringing HIV into homes in this patriarchal society.
"There
are 180 living HIV/AIDS patients, including 42 women, and they are few compared
with Bahrain's population that exceeded 1 million at the end of 2008. Most of
the women contracted the virus through sexual relations mainly with their
infected husbands," Al Jowder said in an interview.
"We
advice the females to not conceive and tell her about the best family planning
methods, but if they insist, then we monitor their pregnancies and put them on
medication (AZT) to save the babies," she explains. Pregnant women are
prescribed the drug, which is administered free for all Bahraini citizens, from
the fourth month of pregnancy.
HIV positive
mothers delivered more than 10 healthy babies naturally in the last 20 years.
In five cases the women were not on AZT. The drug reduces to 2 percent the
chances of babies contracting the infection from their mothers.
Umbassil has
been told that the best maternity facilities for HIV infected pregnant women
are available in Egypt and Lebanon. But she is worried about how she and her
fiancée would be able to afford the high cost of treatment.
So far, she
has kept her HIV status a secret from everybody except her current fiancée and
therapy and medical groups. "It is hard for me to hide such a horrible
fact, but I have no option as my in-laws might force my fiancée to dump
me," she says.
Fear of
social prejudice has forced Umali, an AIDS activist "outside my
country" from publicising her 15-year-old HIV status. She has not told her
friends or relatives in case they refuse to let her into their homes.
Her husband,
a reformed drug addict who campaigns, like her, for Bahrain's HIV/AIDS
community in international fora, infected her.
"I'm an
AIDS-fighting activist outside my country as there I feel free to fight for my
right and defend HIV/AIDS patients. At home I have to put up with maltreatment
and ignorance," says Umali.
She says she
is very close to her sisters "but they don't eat anything I make or from
my dishes for fear of infection," she confides. "It hurts when the
people dearest to you don't accept a glass of water from you."
Social
prejudice is not the only problem for Shafiqa who got the virus from her late
husband 14 years ago. The lack of sensitivity from people who should know
better bothers her more, she says, giving the example of a laboratory where she
goes for a blood test regularly.
"We
have to check the level of the virus in our blood regularly, so many lab
specialists refuse to take our blood because we are HIV/AIDS patients, although
they are wearing gloves all the times," she told IPS.
Shafiqa says
that if medical professionals are unaware that HIV/AIDS patients are more at
risk from infections contracted from so-called normal people because of their
weak immune systems, how can ordinary people know any better.
The Bahrain
government, through the National Programme of the Sexually Transmitted
Diseases, is planning to draft a law to protect the rights of HIV/ AIDS
patients, including women, and eliminate discrimination.
*All names
used are pseudonyms to protect the women interviewed.
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