JEDDAH, 24 July 2006 — AIDS patients in Saudi Arabia complain that, unlike their counterparts abroad, they are ostracized by their communities and pushed to the sidelines of society.
It seems that due to a common lack of awareness, AIDS patients are being faced with a host of psychological and social challenges.
HIV-positive people in foreign countries are usually able to carry on with their lives normally with people around them understanding the challenges they are faced with. But in Saudi Arabia, AIDS carriers are ostracized by society and treated like lepers in bygone days.
Al-Madinah newspaper visited Saudi AIDS patients to get an understanding of what these people suffer everyday.
B. Muhammad was diagnosed with AIDS, has two wives and eight children and is currently receiving treatment at King Saud Hospital in Jeddah. Financially Muhammad is in a very difficult situation and says his salary is barely enough to support his family.
Previously he was working elsewhere but was sacked after his manager found out that he had AIDS. “Society looks at me differently. People look at me as if I’m going to infect them with AIDS by just looking at them. I’ve lost everything and I can no longer support my family. I rely on people’s charity,” he said.
Othman is another AIDS patient who says he has become isolated by society. Osman was infected with AIDS after having an illicit relationship with another woman. He has three children and his wife died of AIDS after she also became infected through him.
“I have three children, two of which are HIV positive. I do not know how to take care of them after their mother died and nor do I have a stable source of income. I receive treatment through a government hospital,” said Othman.
It’s not just Saudi men who have been affected by the deadly AIDS virus. In fact many women in the Kingdom are also found to be carrying AIDS through no fault of their own. Many of these women have been infected by dishonest husbands who sleep around.
The story of Sarah A. is heartbreaking. Sarah says she caught the virus from her husband who was involved in a forbidden relationship and has been abandoned by her loved ones.
She said, “After fifteen years of marriage my husband, who is the one who is really responsible for my misery, decided to leave me. One of my daughters was diagnosed with AIDS and now my life is a nightmare. To add to my misery my ex-husband only gives me SR100 a month to help support me and my children.”
Shareefa Muhammad is another Saudi woman whose husband divorced her after she became HIV positive. Shareefa says she doesn’t know how she caught the illness but suspects her husband to have been the cause.
“I live with my father and two handicapped brothers. Living with such a disease in Saudi society is like living in an open prison. I suffer all the time from depression and social pain because of the way people in society treat me,” said Shareefa.
Shareefa says she remains at home most of the time and hardly goes out. She adds, “Many people that carry AIDS are really innocent of any wrongdoing and most of them are victims of other people’s misdeeds. Because of the way I get treated I’ve thought of committing suicide many times.”
