Living with a secretA Child with HIV living in a family in Orenburg Lena's* story is tragic. It symbolizes how HIV spreads from high risk groups to the rest of the population in Russia, and shows the painful situations caused by stigma and discrimination. Lena's dream of a happy family ended abruptly about two and a half years ago when she unexpectedly was told that she and her daughter were HIV positive. Apparently Lena contracted the virus via her husband during pregnancy. "I used to have a normal life, got pregnant, and everything went simply perfect. All the routine HIV tests were negative. I had anyway no reason to worry. At least, I thought so. I gave birth to a healthy girl, and enjoyed the new family life. Sixth months after the birth of my child I got pregnant again, and wanted to make an abortion. I went to the local clinic, and made again a routine HIV test. The result was positive." Lena was in a complete shock and could not believe what happened. To make things even worse, the doctors reacted extremely negative on her. "The local gyneacologist gathered her colleagues and they all started to look at me, as I was a monkey or as a kind of exhibited item. The doctor refused to sit close to me. Realizing what happened, I thought I would die the next day." She was directed to the AIDS Center in Orenburg, and made another test which was again positive. "Even then I sincerely believed it did not happen to me…" Not much later Lena visited the AIDS Center with her daughter. "My baby looked like any other baby, but it turned out that she was HIV positive as well." Lena often faced the problem of stigma and discrimination, and she is even too afraid to tell her parents with whom she lives together. Lena wanted to bring her child to a kindergarten so she could work by daytime, but the principal reacted negative. "She directly refused my child, and offered to send her to a special kindergarten. She worried that other children might get infected as well." A doctor of the AIDS Center contacted the kindergarten. As by a miracle the attitude of the principal changed entirely after this talk. "When I came again to the kindergarten, the principal welcomed me. With much happiness my daughter attends the kindergarten and so far there are no problems." * The names of children were changed to protect their anonymity
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