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Woman's AIDS campaign breaks taboos in conservative Pak
Publish Date : 12/2/2004 1:52:00 PM   Source : Culture and Community News

Talking about sex is virtually taboo  in
male-dominated Pakistan's conservative Islamic society.
 
So,  for  a woman to openly declare herself HIV  positive  is  to
invite controversy. But that is what Shukriya Gul, a  34-year-old
widowed mother of two, has done.
 
Having discovered that she was infected with the virus almost  10
years ago, an uneducated and under privileged Gul today works  as
a beautician.
Her mission in life is to raise her son and daughter while waging
a  community-based campaign to raise AIDS awareness in a  country
ill-prepared to meet the threat of the disease.
 
She  was diagnosed HIV positive in 1995, after having  caught  it
from her husband, who died in 1995.
 
According  to  Gul  he was infected by  tainted  blood  during  a
transfusion following a road accident while working in Kenya.
 
Told there was no cure and unable to afford drugs marketed in the
West,  Gul knew her children's future depended on her refusal  to
surrender to fate.
 
"I  had to raise them and for that I needed information, which  I
did  not  have  either  before being  diagnosed  or  after  being
diagnosed, " she told a foreign news agency in an interview.
 
"We  had not been briefed about what HIV AIDS was, and  what  the
tests (that we were undergoing) were for," she added.
 
So, she travelled across the country in search of information  on
the  virus -- and the more she discovered, the more she tried  to
pass on to others. Inevitably she ran into barriers, most notably
from the media.
 
Determined to fight, and reassured that the virus was not  spread
through  touch, she faced her friends and family and found  other
HIV carriers to form a counselling service.
 
Information about HIV and AIDS in Pakistan is scant - not just in
rural areas -- and even the government has only rough figures for
how many people may be infected.
 
"  There are many people like me who have no information, who  do
not  know  how to live after getting this disease,  how  to  save
people, how to inform people," she was quoted as saying.
 
"That  is why I have formed this group and the group  has  mostly
people  from the rural areas. As you know, people living  in  the
rural areas have no information," she added.
 
The incidence of AIDS in Pakistan is considered low compared with
neighbouring countries and officials estimate that around  80,000
people could be infected. (ANI)