People living with HIV (PLHIV) in Libya represent an important and real segment in the Libyan community. And it is hard to find a city or neighborhood free of them. During a research journey that I set out to write this article. I have come through so many difficulties to reach the information. Although the broad civic activity of the Libyan society in the human rights support, we find that the support for people living with HIV (PLHIV) is almost non-existent. Mostly, there are no associations nor activists that support this group and their issue, especially when it comes to women living with HIV (WLHIV).
I also contacted the National Center for Communicable Diseases Control to find out the registered cases of women living with HIV (WLHIV), and have gotten health care. I was surprised by the lack of a stable statistic for several reasons. Including the situation of the country that went through the war that led to segregating the entire eastern region. The Centre works with the Coronavirus pandemic. The number of people living with HIV who registered with the Centre was estimated at 6 thousand people. Women represented 35-40%. The Centre provides them the health support and advice that they need as part of their support to cope with the virus.
Zahra, forty-four years old, lives in her parents’ house in the center of the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Zahra was unable to marry due to her HIV infection in her late twenties. She continues her life alone after all her brothers and sisters got married, and they left her alone in the family house without a breadwinner to take care of.
Zahra shared with us her story and the reasons why she stayed without work due to her infection. The virus prevented her from joining the labor market.” I live by my father’s retirement salary, which is 450 dinars since his death six years ago. Before that I used to live by my brothers’ aid for my father which supported us”, she said.
Zahra was accidentally injured during her visit to a beauty center eighteen years ago. She has been suffering from both problems since her injury. Social exclusion and stigmatization denied her rights to work as a teacher on charges of illness.
“After I was diagnosed with the virus, my employer was informed so that the necessary measures are taken to support me. However, I was surprised that I had been dismissed from my work because I was considered a threat to public health, as they say. To move from a teacher with an honourable job to an unemployed woman who poses a danger to my Society and its health”. Zahra said.
With regret and self-blame, Zahra spent the following years needing adoring material and moral support from her family.
She said, “The news of my infection was not easy for my family, especially my married sisters. I became very careful and never left my room only for short times. After my mother’s death four years earlier, my social circle narrowed to the point of suffocation. They could not achieve the goal”.
Over time, by Zahra’s ageing, deterioration of her health and immune system, the dream of returning to the job market became elusive. The years continued to eat Zahra until she withered.
“My life became dull. My daily routine is meditating on the ceiling of my room and hearing the sounds of life outside the walls of the house”. She said.
The social integration of people living with HIV is far from the concerns of the competent authorities. The only provision of some health care and providing them with the necessary treatment was the focus of support for this group.
The composition of a coexistent community is a matter that healthy people cannot perceive or understand. According to Zahra’s description. their status in the social structure is determined by the features of the disease, social exclusion, and the inability to help themselves.
“Through my hesitation to the clinics of the National Center, I was able to have friendships with the partners of the disease. The relationship between us is filled with hope, anticipation, and fear. We are living with our support for each other. And hope is the light in the last of our dark tunnel in which we found ourselves against our will.”
As Zahra got older, the daily obstacles become more painful for her. In the absence of everyone around her. She hopes for the moral support that could give her the motivation she needs to continue living.
“All my siblings are married and their lives have stabilized. I am happy for them and missed them. I live in my father’s house alone and in silence. As I get older my physical and financial needs have increased more. I cannot count how many nights I slept without eating even a loaf of bread. I fear dying alone and hungry. My brothers and their sons visit me intermittently and try to console me with little. on the other hand, they fall into a trap of fear for themselves, which makes me prefer my loneliness over their being by my side.
Zahra sealed her conversation with us with a flame of hope that made me cry for her extreme patience.
“Since the first day with my illness. I have realized that God has chosen me from all his creation to test myself and my patience. I believe that the end of this patience and my bumpy path is a great reward. This is in my promotion every day.”
In a country dominated by armed conflict, security unrest, a weak health system, and a lack of job opportunities. Zahra is struggling to live with all the difficulties that limit her space. She holds hope for a better tomorrow.