• by Salma Ahmad Kano (kano, northern nigeria)
• Tuesday, February 16, 2010
• Inter Press Service

'I will never have anything to do with women since I have been diagnosed to have a killer disease.' It is not clear how Muhammad Jungudo (17) contracted HIV, but he suspects it happened at a local barber shop where the implements used for shaving are rarely sterilised. And knowing how he contracted the virus is important. At least it was to Jungudo’s family.

Jungudo is Fulani. The Fulanis are a prominent tribe in northern Nigeria who are known to rear cattle and live in very remote areas.

The Fulani are also very traditional and do not allow for what they see as a ‘lack of morality’ among its youth. The tribe have been known to frown on premarital sex, a principle that is part of their Islamic teachings.

'They all believed I slept with a woman and contracted it.'

And because of this Jungudo was thrown out of the only home he ever knew and forced into exile.

Living in the rural areas has left the Fulani inadequately informed about HIV/AIDS and how the virus is contracted. It is widely assumed by most people in remote areas of northern Nigeria that HIV is contracted only through sex.

'But I can swear it that I never slept with any woman in my life,' Jungudo insists.

According to AVERT, an international HIV/AIDS charity, HIV in Nigeria is mainly transmitted through sex. However, 10 percent of new HIV infections are attributed to blood transfusions. A health worker at the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Kano, Malama Maryam Sani, said that in northern Nigeria youths have been known to contract HIV through local barbers because the items used are rarely sterilised.

But the lack of adequate knowledge about HIV/AIDS has meant that there are many myths and misconceptions about the virus in Nigeria.

A 2008 report on the Global AIDS Epidemic conducted in Nigeria by the United Nations Agency for International Development and the World Health Organisation revealed that the fear and stigma associated with HIV/AIDS as 'immoral' often causes those infected with HIV to be outcast.

And this is mostly affecting the youth, like Jungudo. According to UNICEF, an estimated 3.5 to 3.8 million people are living with HIV in Nigeria, making the country the third-worst affected in the world. The rate of infection is highest among young people with 4.7 percent of 20-24 year-olds and 4.9 percent of 25-29 year-olds infected with HIV.

'Sex is traditionally a very private subject in Nigeria and the discussion of sex with teenagers is often seen as inappropriate. Up until recently there was little or no sexual health education for young people and this has been a major barrier to reducing rates of HIV and other STDs,' AVERT says.

It was the same in Jungudo’s case. Neither he nor his uncle was sufficiently educated about the virus to be able to cope with Jungudo’s diagnosis.

'When I kept falling ill about three years ago, a medical staff in our community advised my uncle with whom I grew up with, to take me to the city for check up.

'My uncle was with me through all the struggle to regain my health, but when the result revealed that I (was) carrying the killer disease and it was explained to him that it was transmitted sexually, they all believed I slept with a woman and contacted it,' Jungudo says.

The teenager from Shengel village, about 200 miles away from northern Nigeria’s ancient city of Kano, was forced to leave his home.

Jungudo, who was formerly a farmer, said he fled from the stigma he faced in his village and relocated to the city of Kano.

'I had to force myself to learn to eat their kind of food here and to adapt to a lot of things; in fact I learnt carpentry to be able to eat because I can rear no animals or farm in the city.

'The food is different and you see different people every day ... but I have no choice.'

He says it had been a bitter experience when his people deserted him because of his status.

IPS asked the teenager if he had been involved in a relationship since his diagnosis. He says he dares not after his own uncle turned down a promise of marrying his daughter to him. He also says he was scared to fall in love with a woman because he feared she would not accept his status.

Jungudo adds that he no longer dreams of getting married, because he is sure that no one in his community will agree to offer him a wife.

IPS asked him if he ever thinkw or having an affair or even imagining kissing a woman. He nods his head and answers in a low tone: 'I try to satisfy myself without a woman'.

Dr. Aminu Ahmed, a psychologist, says that stigmatisation was the main cause of feelings of isolation among most HIV-positive teenagers. He says the parents and communities of these teenagers often desert them when they were found to be HIV-positive. This, he explains, left many feeling unwanted.

While countrywide the Youth Network on HIV/AIDS, a network of youth-serving organisations is working towards a response against the pandemic, there are few organisations in northern Nigeria. This, Sani says, is largely due to the stigma that still surrounds the virus in the region.

The Taimako Support Group is one of the few organisations in the area that provides counselling. Started by Fatima Haruna in 2003, it also provides a match-making service to HIV-positive youngsters.

'We monitor to see people who get upset after collecting their test and being told they are positive. Some of them come out crying and some sit under the trees and cry and find it difficult to go home and explain their situation.

'So we ask them if they have a problem and we counsel them and one of us goes home with the person infected and explain to their families that it’s not anything to panic about,' she explains.

Haruna says that although the group counselled all those infected with the virus, most of their members were the youth.

'Our major task has gone beyond comforting the people living with the virus rather, we encourage intermarriage amongst them when we realise that most of them fear the fact that they can never have sex because of their status,' Haruna says.

She says she often encouraged the HIV-positive youth to date among themselves.

'It’s been working for us and them too.'

She reveals that in 2009 the community married off 12 couples.

One couple, Hajiya Habiba Auwal and Auwalu Toro, said they were married early last year when Auwal discovered she was HIV-positive. She had turned 17 and just completed high school.

She says she had faced intense stigma because of her status and her parents lost hope in marrying her off. Then Toro proposed to her after attending the weekly meeting at the Taimako Support Group office.

'We had a courtship for a short period of time and I introduced him to my family. They instantly agreed to our marriage when I told them he is also positive,' Auwal explains.

Haruna says there was an urgent need for parents to be educated about HIV so they could stop stigmatising their children.

'In northern Nigeria especially, people should know that HIV/AIDS is not only contacted through intercourse but people still assume that when a person is said to be positively tested,' she says.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service