AIDS and the Rwandan Genocide: one woman's story

6 March 2006

Like many other Rwandese, Chantal, 40, grew up as a refugee, living with her family in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1959.

Not long before the Rwandan genocide, Chantal decided to return to her homeland, hoping to make a good life for herself. When violence erupted throughout the country Chantal fled once again towards Congo. However, as she was fleeing, a group of eight soldiers came upon her.

“They took me one by one and I could not resist them because I feared for my life,” she says as she recounts her nightmare.

Soon after, Chantal discovered that she was pregnant and nine months later she delivered a baby girl who was HIV positive. “To this day I don’t know who the father of my daughter is,” says Chantal.

But she loves her daughter, who is now 12 and on treatment: “She is a human being just like everyone else. It is an everyday shock for her not to know who her father is. But luckily, my family cares deeply about her.”

After the rape, Chantal endured multiple infections. At one point she even feared having cervical cancer because the delivery of her fourth child was so painful.

When Chantal returned to Rwanda after the genocide, she took her first HIV test. In 1996 she discovered that she was HIV positive. A few months later, she developed a severe skin rash. “That is when I started to take better care of myself and joined an association for HIV positive people called Abizeyimana in 2000.”

With CARE International in Rwanda, Chantal advocates for the rights of people living with HIV and AIDS, for prevention and behaviour change, against stigma and discrimination, and for the use of anti-retro viral and prophylactic treatment. She also encourages CARE staff in Rwanda to go for voluntary counseling and testing. This year she hopes to convince members of the international community to create special fellowships for unplanned children.

“These are children of sorrowful memories since they were born from unwanted husbands or killers who at times even murdered their own relatives,” she explains. Her goal is to help revive affection for these children who have been rejected by their parents. “In our wounded society, these children are worth less than the dead. They scatter the streets and are left to fend for themselves. Yet many of them have parents who are alive or are ill with AIDS.”

At that time in Rwanda very few people were open about their status. For Chantal too it was the first time she told anyone. Working with the Presbyterian Church, Chantal helped the association move forward. Their goal was to fight stigma and discrimination, especially as it affected women and children. “I worked in different provincial churches. I spoke from my own experience and encouraged christians to treat HIV-positive people with dignity,” recounts Chantal.

Many of the women Chantal has reached acknowledge the importance of going for voluntary counseling and testing services. “Others have delayed knowing and as a result of this have died. But many told me that that their CD4 counts have increased and that they are physically healthy despite living with HIV,” says Chantal. “I have surrendered my body to history because I want people to understand the difference between those of us who are HIV positive and manage to look healthy and those who are sick with AIDS because they either don’t have access to treatment or have denied the illness to themselves.”

Chantal says that sharing a personal story contributes to the fight against stigma. “People understand that you are actually doing something positive for society by sharing your own story,” she explains. Of course, she adds, education is equally important in the fight against HIV and AIDS. “NGOs should teach people how to build on their basic knowledge.”

Incentives, she says, should be given to women living with HIV who are willing to share their personal story and in so doing are helping others become more aware about the risks of contracting and spreading HIV. “It is when people are not sensitized, that infections are transmitted.”

Through internet contacts, Chantal has become a member of the International Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (ICW), a group that invited her to attend the 2004 World AIDS Conference in Thailand. “The Bangkok conference inspired me to speak on behalf of the rape victims of the Rwandan genocide,” said Chantal, who for the first time in her life had a chance to speak about this issue in public. Since then, Chantal has been attending other international conferences, always sharing her positive living experience with women from around the world.

by Fiacre Bienvenu, AIDS Information Officer for CARE International in Rwanda