Johannesburg - Dorcas* was an 18-year-old virgin when she met her husband. Both of them were studying at the time and three years later he paid lobola for her.
They later had two children and she could not be happier. However, the fact that her husband is the only person she has ever slept with did not protect Dorcas from contacting HIV within marriage.
Dorcas's story is every married person's worst nightmare and shatters the myth that only those who are promiscuous are susceptible to contracting HIV.
The now-54-year-old woman's world came crashing down in 1999 when she was 38.
She was working as a domestic worker at the time and her employers used to take her with wherever they holidayed. That particular year they were in Lebanon and after a few days Dorcas fell ill.
“I was shaking and my body was sore,” she recalled.
She was hospitalised and various tests were done and it was found that she was HIV-positive. Dorcas did not believe that she was HIV-positive and neither did her employers.When they arrived in South Africa they took her to four different doctors for further tests.
The results were all the same: Dorcas was HIV-positive.
After that Dorcas told her family about her status.
“My brother stood up, hugged me and told me that he still loved me, HIV or not.”
She tried to get her husband to test for HIV but Dorcas says he refused, saying the fact that she was HIV-positive did not mean he was also infected.
“He also did not want to use condoms even though he knew my status. “I refused to sleep with him because I did not know whether he was positive or not and I did not want to be re-infected.”
For two years Dorcas lived with her husband but they were never intimate because he still refused to test or even use condoms. He later left Dorcas and moved in with another woman.
Since the day she found out about her status 16 years ago, Dorcas has not had sex.
“It is difficult to tell someone that you are HIV-positive because some people do not want to condomise,” she says.
Her infection has changed the way she views HIV/Aids and how it is contracted because like many people, she thought being married and sleeping with only one partner could shield her from it.
“I cried for a week after finding out I was HIV-positive; my husband is the only person I ever slept with. I was a virgin in Grade 11 when I met him.”
Dorcas says the only way for people in marriages to protect themselves is to use condoms when they are done with making babies.
“Men leave their wives and have extramarital affairs and women also leave their husband for other men.
“The problem is that married people do not use condoms in their marriages and even when they cheat they prefer flesh to flesh,” she says.