By Wong Kim Hoh
Senior Writer
kimhoh@sph.com.sg

 

IT is a Saturday afternoon in Rayong, eastern Thailand, and like many Thai teenagers, Mean Techateamjan, 14, has made plans to go to the mall with his classmate Watcharapong who is also his best friend.

Nothing unusual except that Watcharapong happens to be an orphan, and one who is HIV-positive to boot.

But Mean is cool about it. So are all of Watcharapong’s classmates who know about his condition too.

"I know how HIV is transmitted. We learn about it in school. I know I can't get it just hanging out with him. He's a cool guy," says Mean of his friend.

Seeing the two together made me very happy, both as a journalist and a human being.

In the course of my work, I've met enough Aids and HIV patients in Singapore to have a pretty good idea of how they are treated.

Many of them are forced to lead very invisible lives as they risk discrimination at work and in public.

I know of at least two men who have been forced to quit their jobs after they told their employers they are HIV-positive.

I've talked to a 63-year-old woman who was infected by her late husband.

Her youngest daughter - whom she put through university - moved out of their home, and would not sit with her at the same table in restaurants.

Sadly, many in Singapore still attach moral tags to the disease, and believe that folk living with the virus must be either sexually or morally deviant.

Unlike people, the disease does not discriminate. It can affect your brother, butcher, grandfather, teacher, neighbour or cousin.

The late Paddy Chew came out publicly to say he had Aids in Singapore more than a decade ago. Nobody has stepped forward since then. You can't blame them: the price is just too high.

It's a pity really. Because other than awareness and education, a human face to the disease is one of the most effective ways to battle the stigma associated with HIV.

I met many HIV-positive people like Watcharapong - who inherited the virus from his late mother - in Rayong. And I met just as many people like Mean who treated them no differently than they would any other human being.

This did not happen overnight. But the Thai government, doctors, social workers, activists and people living with Aids/HIV worked and are still working very hard, to fight the virus and the stigma associated with it.

If the Thais can do it, surely we can too?

Read Wong Kim Hoh's Saturday Special Report on Aids in today's edition of The Straits Times.