Woman who got HIV while seeking for A child

Toyosi Ogunseye tells the stories of women who contracted HIV while desperately seeking to have children and the societal pressure that pushes them into the hands of quacks and pseudo-medical centres

I got HIV in the process of looking for a child,” says Mrs. Titi Okunowo with a sad smile. “I got the child but it came with what I didn’t bargain for — a virus I may live with for the rest of my life.”

Globally, sexual transmission is responsible for 75 per cent of HIV infections. But Okunowo did not contract HIV through sex. It all started with a love story.

When Okunowo met with the man that would become her husband, it was almost love at first sight. But her husband’s family opposed their union. So, when they tried for a baby and there was none coming, Okunowo began to fear for the future of her marriage.

“I didn’t want to lose my husband. I didn’t want him to look outside for another woman who could bear him a child. I wanted to protect my marriage and I also feared my in-laws’ wrath,” she says.

Okunowo is one of the 3.1 million Nigerians who have the Human Immunodeficiency Virus in their bloodstreams. According to the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, 58  per cent of the members of this group are women but only 23 per cent of women in Nigeria have comprehensive knowledge of HIV transmission and prevention issues.

Driven by the desperation to have a child and save her home, Okunowo went looking for help at hospitals and trado-medical centres. She moved from doctors to herbalists, submitting her body to injections, incisions, transfusions and all manner of invasive procedures. In her desperation, she did not request any of the doctors or herbalists to sterilise the tools or use new ones.

She says, “I won’t lie to you. I visited everyone and everywhere I could to get a child. Once I hear that someone somewhere can help me get pregnant, I would run there as far as my legs could carry me. Name the state, I have been there. And I am not talking about hospitals alone; I also visited herbalists in three different states.

“I went through all sorts of procedures, both medical and ‘native’ in my desperation. Some of the places where these procedures took place were not neat but I didn’t care. Neatness and safety was the last thing on my mind. I did not ask if they sterilised their blades or not.  I just needed a child. I needed to keep my home.”