A family torn apart by stigma: Ji's story
This story about a young woman living with HIV in China was taken from ‘Face and let face’, a Chinese publication produced and distributed through a stigma and discrimination project supported by the Alliance:
Ji is a 26-year-old Dai woman. In June 2000, after her marriage, she moved to her husband’s village to live with her husband, her daughter and her husband’s parents. The family got on well together.
In April 2006, Ji started to rapidly lose weight and developed a persistent fever. She ended up in hospital, where she found out she was HIV positive.
Everything changed when Ji returned home. Her mother-in-law asked her son to sleep in a separate bed, saying, “If one has such a disease, one is not far away from death.” Ji was not allowed to cook food or wash clothes. She had to use separate bowls and chopsticks for meals and was not allowed to share the dinner table with family members.
Not long after, Ji’s husband was diagnosed HIV positive. Ji’s mother-in-law pressed for the couple to separate, saying “it was you who gave the disease to him. It was you who brought such a disease into my family. My son never fooled around. You are the source for all the bad luck.” In China, it is common for women to be blamed when both husband and wife find out they are positive.
Sick and unable to work, Ji returned to her parents’ home with her daughter. Her husband phoned her, requesting a divorce and asking her to return to take away her belongings. When she was there, she pleaded with her husband’s parents to support her with rice and money, to help her raise her daughter. Her mother-in-law refused: “I don’t have spare money or spare rice for someone who has a disease like you.”
Ji was fortunate to receive free antiretroviral treatment as part of the Chinese government’s national Four Free and One Care policy. But her mother-in-law disclosed Ji’s status to their community, saying “My daughter-in-law has AIDS. Now she takes free drugs.”
Ji keeps in regular contact with villagers in her parents’ community, but is afraid to disclose her status anyone else, although her parents know her status and are being supportive.
Ji reported the treatment by her husband’s family to her local Women’s Federation.
“If the Women’s Federation fails to convince my in-laws, I will make it a lawsuit in order to bring justice to my life.”
