An AIDS victim who never was

KOLKATA, JUNE 6. It is a sordid tale of a young woman: gangraped at 18 and then wrongly tested HIV positive. She now roams the city streets with the stigma of an AIDS victim.

Meet Anita (not her real name), 23, with a baby in arms - from her second husband - hanging around the Nimtala crematorium in the northern Kolkata.

She cannot stay at one place for more than two days, as the other pavement-dwellers drive her out.

After being raped by her paramour and his friends, deserted by her family and husbands, she hardly has anybody to turn to.

Daughter of a poor Bidi worker, Anita fell for a roadside Romeo, whose name she does not reveal. She eloped with him to Ranchi.

Shattered and forlorn after the rape, she returned to the city. Her parents filed a case with the Jorabagan police station.

Things turned worse when she conceived and developed some complications. She was taken to a city hospital where she was declared HIV positive.

Anita gave birth to a male offspring, also `detected' HIV positive, in February 1998. The baby did not survive but she did.

Meanwhile, she came into contact with a voluntary organisation, `Medical Bank'. But she could not stay there for long and tried to return home, only to find the doors shut on her because of her `affliction'.

However, her elder sister managed to find a man to marry her. In fact, she married twice, only to be deserted and driven out by her husbands when they came to know of her `problem'.

Unable to withstand the series of traumatic experiences, Anita lost her mental balance. But the irony of fate continued. It was during her second delivery the School of Tropical Medicine certified her as HIV negative after conducting the Elisa test.

``But the damage had already been done. She could not convince others that she was not afflicted with HIV. Till date she continues to be ostracised by her family and others,'' says D Ashis, the secretary, Medical Bank.

- PTI

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