International Women ’s Day, 2024Rural Tajik Woman’s Road to Empowering Women Living with HIV

Takhmina Haidarova, Tajik advocate for the rights of women living with HIV. By Ed HoltBRATISLAVA, Mar 7 2024 (IPS) Born and raised in a rural area in a traditional Tajik family, Takhmina Haidarova managed to finish high school with excellent grades and wanted to go to university. “[But] it was compulsory for my family to give higher education to boys, and girls were trained to be housewives,” she says. Her dream of higher education was instead replaced by an arranged marriage to a cousin. “I was strongly against this wedding, but my father decided for me and married me to him. I hadn’t even seen him before the wedding,” she tells IPS. She became pregnant soon after the wedding, but her husband, who had worked in Russia before he wed her, left to return to his work there two months into the pregnancy. She gave birth to a daughter, who, however, died after falling ill a year later. Haidarova was referred to doctors, who ran tests and discovered she had HIV. “When I told my husband about it, it turned out he had known he had HIV for a long time and had hidden it from me,” she says. Not long after, her husband returned to Tajikistan. He was seriously ill and was admitted to the hospital. When he died soon after, both his and Haidarova’s families found out they both had the disease, and the stigma and discrimination she has faced for many years since then began. “None of my relatives communicated with me; they all avoided meeting with me,” she tells IPS. “So...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Active Citizens Civil Society Editors' Choice Featured Gender Headlines Health Human Rights Middle East & North Africa Sustainable Development Goals TerraViva United Nations Women's Health International Women's Day 2024 IPS UN Bu Source Type: news