Shocking confessions of adolescent homosexuals living with HIV
- Victims keep status from parents, narrate how they started homosexuality from tender age
- Female HIV victim relives how neighbour sheltering her raped, impregnated her
Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan in January 2014 signed into law a bill that bans same-sex marriage and membership of gay organisations.
Four years down the line, The Nation’s investigation revealed that the practice which the law was designed to tame is fast spreading not just among adults but also among teenagers and adolescents and contributing to the escalation of the HIV crisis in the country. INNOCENT DURU who spoke with some adolescent- homosexuals living with HIV reports.
Mike, a 26-year-old , wears an innocent look and highly trusted by the parents who believe that he can never keep them in the dark about anything. But contrary to the parents conviction about their son, Mikel is a homosexual from a very young age but has kept this away from them( the parents). Aside from being a homosexual, the young man is also living with the HIV virus, but has never revealed it to the parents. Whenever the parents show concern for people living with HIV, Mike joins them to do so without the parents knowing their son is a victim.
“I knew about my status in 2013 and started treatment the same year. I was 21 years old when I discovered I am positive. I was a little bit sober when I learnt about it but at the same time, I was well informed about HIV before I did the test and wasn’t too disturbed. I was a member of a dedication peers educating and sensitizing people about HIV before then. So, when I learnt about mine, it wasn’t much of a problem because I had good information about it. I just felt life goes on, Mikel said.
Asked how his parents reacted to his HIV status, Mikel replied: “My parents are not in any way aware of it. I haven’t told them because I feel they do not have good information about HIV. They still feel the virus is incurable and a death sentence.”
He unabashedly told The Nation how he contracted the virus, saying : “I am convinced that I got the virus through sex and no other means. I am gay but I do show feelings for females for fun. I grew up being a homosexual. When I was 12 years old, I started admiring boys like me as if they were females. I started practicing homosexuality before secondary school, primary school to be precise. Then, we were just touching and admiring each other. When no one would be at home, we would engage in some plays and saying your thing is bigger than mine and gradually, it developed into full blown homosexuality.
“We do go to hotel or a friend’s house to have intercourse. We always prefer a friend’s house because privacy is guaranteed than in hotel. When I am in need, I do approach my sex partners and they do assist with whatever they have.”
On how he woos his same sex partners into a relationship, Mike said: “It is not about approaching the other person. It is by contact. When we see each other, the body chemistry tells us we are one.”
Completely ruling out the thought of getting married, he said: “I don’t want to marry. I want to enjoy my life to the fullest.”
While he is unruffled about his status, Mike is greatly disturbed by reports of foreign donors withdrawing their support in the area of HIV treatment. He said: “People will go mad and mentally upset if the donors withdraw. Do you know how much that drug costs? Apart from people dying, if foreign donors withdraw, many victims will start doing what they are not supposed to be doing to survive.
“Death is secondary in this matter because I believe that if you are going to die, it will take a long while. Imagine somebody earning N15, 000 a month and would have to pay N10, 000 a month for the drug. How would he cope? It will cause many more to be sleeping around and it is not everybody that wants to sleep with you that wants to use condom. Some people are ready to pay N100,000 to make love without condom.
Mikel is not alone in the business of keeping the parents in the dark about his status. Another victim, Onoja, also does. “I became aware in 2014 at the age of 18. My parents are not aware of my status because I don’t want them to start thinking about my problem. It is my problem and not theirs. From my estimation, I think I became positive through sexual intercourse. I am bi-sexual by force and not by choice because I need to get married one day and have children all because of my mum and dad.
“Even if I don’t get married, someone will get pregnant for me. If I am in another country where there is understanding, I will not be bi-sexual. I am gay. Nobody initiated me into it. It has been in me. Right from the time I started having feelings for the opposite sex, I had also started having feelings for the same sex. I started practicing homosexuality with my neighbours.
“Whenever we were doing drama as children, I would be the wife and another boy would be the husband. We would start touching from there. I had my first homosexual relationship with a friend of mine who is a footballer. I have had several other same sex partners thereafter. I can’t count them. When I was in the secondary school, I was into it but not beyond touching. But when I left school, I started having penetrative intercourse. I became positive through this.“
Speaking on his challenge as a HIV victim, Onoja said: “The challenge I have is that I have to hide to take my medication in the house so that my parents would not know. I am also very much afraid about the issue of donors withdrawing. If that happens, what would happen to people like us? The government should see how they can work with the funders
“I have colleagues who have died but I feel that they are the ones that wanted to die. This is because they refused to go for treatment and some were not taking their medications constantly and these are medications that you must take everyday and at a particular time. If you stop taking it, the virus will get stronger and compound the health situation. Some of our colleagues still engage in unprotected sex.
It was another round of disturbing revealation when our correspondent spoke with Robinson who unequivocally declared that he is a gay.
“I am a gay. I became a homosexual when I was in SS1. Nobody introduced me to it. I just saw myself having sexual feeling for the same sex but I didn’t practice it then. I started practicing it in 2013.
“It was from this that I got HIV virus because nobody taught me about safe sex. Some of my sex partners may be having the virus too but I stopped engaging in unprotected sex with my sex partners immediately I became aware of my status, ” he said.
Like his peers, Robinson said his parents are also not aware of his both his nature as a gay and his HIV status. “I tested positive in 2015 but I started treatment a year later. I was 25 years then. My parents are not aware of my status. I didn’t tell them because I don’t know how they would react to it. I was seeing horrible things the first day I took my anti retroviral drug.”
He said getting married in life would be for the purpose of pleasing his parents. “I would want to get married in future because of family pressure and belief system. Left for me, I don’t want to get married. I want to be a surrogate father. Marriage is not what I want.”
For Gabriel the story is a bit different as he is not a homosexual. But he told our correspondent that his status as a person living with HIV has changed his sexual orientation. : “ I knew about my status in November 2015. I knew about it when I went with a friend’s organization at Ireti Street, Yaba. I don’t want to tell my parents about it. I just want to keep it to myself. I don’t want to tell them because one thing we all fear is the fear of the unknown.
“Their reaction could be throwing me out of the house, or disowning me or trying to know how I got the virus. That kind of reaction will affect me mentally and emotionally and that could hinder me from handling the challenge. I do have sexual urge and everybody has to handle it his own way. I am now asexual. I have sex with myself and I am satisfied. I know I can use condom but I won’t. I do have fears about my status. Who wouldn’t have. I lost a –victim colleague and it was very painful to me. When the fear of death strikes you, you would imagine what if I am the next.”
Gabriel equally dismissed the idea of getting married, saying :”Marriage is not on my mind. I just want to be successful. I don’t want to see myself getting married even in the future because I don’t want to put a burden on another person. I just want to be on my own. 90 per cent of me is saying no to marriage.”
It was a completely different story with Adesola, a female living with the HIV virus. She has gone through humiliation, violation and rejection after she tested positive to HIV. Reliving her ordeal, Adesola said: ” I knew about my status in 2013. It began when I started falling sick in 2011. It started with a cut then big boils and serious coughing. I started taking codeine to take care of it to no avail. The challenge resulted into sleepless nights. At a point I started feeling itching on my body and it was always as if a screw driver was going through my skin. Pus and blood always came out of the itchy spots.
“I was 19 years old when I discovered my status. The hospital told my mother about it after I was admitted. I didn’t even know. It was a friend that sent a text message to me that I am HIV positive. The hospital didn’t get my consent before telling anybody about my status. People outside knew about my status before I knew.”
With her status already a public issue, Adesola said she faced serious stigmatisation even among his sibblings. “My mother wasn’t hostile to me but my siblings were.My younger sister who was initially on my side later turned against me. I got stigmatized everywhere around me. I faced hell and slept in the passage for two years in my grand father’s house all because I am HIV positive.”
Added to the pains of being stigmatised, Adesola tearfully recalls how a neighbour she sought shelter in his room violated her. “When I was discharged from the hospital and had to sleep in the passage, there was a heavy rain one of the nights and I couldn’t cope with the weather condition. I had to go and beg our neighbour to allow me sleep in his room. He took advantage of that and violated me. I consequently got pregnant and have a four-year-old girl as a result of that. The man didn’t know my status. I didn’t get married to him and I don’t even know where he is for the past four years.
“The manner I had my baby wasn’t a good thing but my girl is making me feel on top of the world. The way I got the pregnancy was not a good way at alI; I was violated.
” I will educate my child about my status. I will let her know I was positive when I got her pregnancy. I will make her understand that being positive is not the end of the world. I will make her understand that HIV is even better than malaria.”
In spite of the unpleasant experience, she said: “I want to get married. I really wish to get married.”
She also expressed concern about dwindling support from foreign donors. “It gives me fears. In my own facility we don’t pay to get treatment but in some facilities, they have been paying for the past two years. Some pay between N5, 000 and N6, 000 and these are people who cannot afford a square meal a day for themselves.
“The implication is simply massive death. Those without strong immune system will consequently drop to the second line. i can say that 60 per cent of people living with HIV doesn’t have a good job.”