Another
participant in our first focus group described a traumatic experience when his classmates found out that
he was HIV positive. When his friends
saw him taking his medication and asked what it was, he would tell them that it
was for a headache. One day, one of his friends
had a headache and went into the participant’s belongings and took one of his
medications. Afterwards, his friend felt
dizzy and reported it to the headmaster.
The headmaster assumed that he had taken illicit drugs and asked where
he had gotten the medication. Then, the
headmaster took the bottle of medication from that participant’s belongings and
held it up in front of the entire school, asking who it belonged to. The participant didn’t speak up but many of
his classmates knew that it was his and some identified it as medication for
HIV. Soon, the whole school knew and the
participant was humiliated and depressed.
He refused to leave his bed or go to class for several days. When he finally did, he discovered that he
was being barred from entering the classroom by school security until he turned
over the rest of his medication. He
tried explaining what the medication was for and that he needed it, but the
headmaster refused to let him return to class until he gave him turned in his
medication. So, the participant went to
the police station and told them and the situation, disclosing his HIV status
to one particular police officer. The
police officer told him that he would come to his school soon. Three days later, a different police officer
showed up at school and took him back to the police station. During this time, many people in the police
office also became aware that the participant was HIV positive. Eventually the headmaster came to understand
the participant’s situation, however, due to this experience and the
discrimination that the participant was faced at his boarding school he
transferred soon after. Ultimately, he
dropped out of boarding school and no longer attends school due to the extreme
stigma that he faced from having HIV.
