HIV positive students face cruellest form of discrimination

By Nicholas Anyuor

As a high school student, Monica Atieno was on a special diet. Her guardians brought cooked food for her daily. For this, her schoolmates hated her.

To help Atieno, a friend explained that she had to be on the special diet because of her HIV status.

But this one act of coming to Atieno’s aid set off a chain of events that made her life in secondary school unbearable.

Her schoolmates shunned and mocked her. Even her close friends refused to touch her books or welcome her to join any discussion group.

“Some students threatened to beat me up any time I tried to join them, even for storytelling,” the 19-year-old recalls her dark days in a secondary school in Kisumu County.

While going through this, she did not know why the entire school was hostile towards her. Then a classmate casually informed her that word had spread about her being HIV positive.

Cursed child

“They claimed that anyone who is HIV positive must have been a prostitute. They did not believe it when I told them I was born with the virus,” recalls Atieno, who is now a social worker.

Atieno is situation is what the many hundreds of HIV positive pupils and students go in school.

Before the other students knew about Atieno’s status, they had thought she came from a rich family as her guardians — well-wishers who were taking care of her after the death of her parents while she was still in primary school — brought her nice food.

“They accused me of being proud simply because of the special meals. They hated me.”

She continues: “They called me names. Some said I was a cursed child while others believed I got the virus out of promiscuity. I felt hurt and wept bitterly.”

Her desk-mate relocated. Life in the dormitory was not good either — every time she entered her dormitory cubicle, students would walk out.

Ready to die

“It was painful,” she says.

Her problems worsened when the students realised Atieno was taking antiretroviral drugs. 

“I wept and wept. I stopped taking the drugs and was ready to die any time. I had to leave the school and told my guardian to leave me alone because the discrimination was too much. But the guardian found me another school which I joined as a day-scholar,” she remarks.

She tested positive while in primary school after she became sickly. As she sought treatment in health facilities, no one thought of doing the test.

It was finally done when she was in Standard Six. Besides testing positive, she needed urgent medical attention.

“Luckily, I was put under medication and continued with my studies up to high school.”

Many HIV positive students in the country face discrimination, not only from fellow students, but also from some teachers. But there are those who have been lucky to find supporting study environments.

For example, Serfin Anyango, a Standard Six pupil in a school in Kisumu County, could easily have faced extreme discrimination like Atieno were it not for the support she gets from her grandmother and teachers.

Anyango was born with the virus and her grandmother took her in after she lost her parents.

“My grandmother encourages me every day. She has informed the head teacher about my status and I have no problem with teachers. The head teacher even reminds me to take my drugs while in school,” says Anyango, 14.

She takes her drugs at 8pm while at home and at 8am while in school.

“A few pupils react differently to me, but later when they find out, most understand because my teachers have helped dispel the myths about people living with HIV,” she says.

Dorcas Ongalo the head teacher of Ayaro Primary School in Kisumu says cases of HIV positive pupils being discriminated against are common in schools.

“Teachers must understand such pupils and even counsel them. It is also our responsibility to ensure the students who take drugs during school hours are reminded to do so,” she says.

Currently in Kenya, an estimated 1.5 million people are living with HIV and about 1.2 million are children who have been orphaned by Aids.

Sr Anastasia Juma of Our Lady of Perpetual Support for People Living with Aids and Orphans, says her organisation is currently taking care of more than 200 HIV positive children in schools.

“Well-wishers should come out in big numbers to help these children in schools. Something must be done in schools to help them,” she appeals.