In the words of Natalia Tiuniahina: “My biggest inner need is to help women accept their status, to teach them to live a full life with HIV”

Natalia Tiuniahina is the Regional Coordinator of the charitable organization “Positive Women” and founder and Board member of the public organization “Positive Women Kherson” in southern Ukraine. 

I came to the charitable organization ‘Positive Women’ thanks to the previous coordinator. She participated extensively in creating self-help groups. I assisted her and she saw that women know and trust me, and trust is the main quality needed for our work. 

For almost a year now, we have been collaborating with the UN Women project “Advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment through Decentralization Reform of Ukraine”, [which is funded by Global Affairs Canada]. At the same time, I studied at the Civic Leadership Academy (Ukraine). As a result of UN Women trainings and work with professional mentors, together with women from self-help groups, I created a separate public organization entitled ‘Positive Women Kherson’, which is providing targeted assistance to women in our region. 

Our organization supports women living with HIV, those who have experienced domestic violence or face various forms of discrimination. Our activities are aimed at acceptance of one’s HIV status, overcoming self-stigma, restoring lost skills, resocialization and awareness of our rights as women living with HIV. We work with lawyers who provide free legal aid and of course we have self-help groups for women.  

A self-help group is a space where women can talk about their feelings and experiences and find support in solving problems. But the most important thing is open communication, new acquaintances, and the exchange of life stories. 

We are also working hard to break down stereotypes about people living with HIV. We invited people from different fields and organized a film screening and discussion. The film was about a woman with HIV who learned about her status during pregnancy and what steps she should take to receive therapy and give birth to a healthy baby. Women often find out about their HIV status only when registering a pregnancy. For many invited guests, this event became motivation for testing. 

We often encounter prejudice that people with HIV are drug addicts or from marginalized groups. I do not argue, I just invite people to take part in our events and debunk these myths. After our events, we are visited by women and men who have been married for a long time but have never been tested for HIV. They take tests for themselves and their partners. I believe that this should be a perfectly normal practice in our society. 

Most women join our organization because they experience domestic violence. Violence is often triggered by identifying their HIV status, which they may have acquired as a result of violence. Women are looking not only for moral support, but also for compassionate doctors, but there are not many of them. Stigma also prevents a woman from disclosing her status to a gynecologist or any other doctor when prescribing treatment, [which is a problem] because some drugs are incompatible with antiretroviral therapy. 

It is important to work with doctors and health workers. For example, on how to empathize with care and respect patients’ privacy. It is extremely important for women living with HIV to have contact with friendly doctors who will not treat them with contempt or caution. These are, in my opinion, the basic rights of women. I am glad that we now have friendly infectious disease specialists, gynecologists and pediatricians who can be contacted at any time. Yet they are not enough to cover all women.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, violence against women increased as they were left alone with their abusers. Women from villages and remote settlements began contacting us more often. Because of the pandemic, many men lost their jobs, affecting both their psychological and the emotional state. To keep abreast of this issue, we are working with the City Crisis Centre for Domestic Violence Victims. 

In one of the latest cases, a doctor from the AIDS centre contacted us and said it was not the first time one of his patients came to an appointment with bruises. The patient admitted she had suffered violence from her boyfriend and needed help. Upon learning that she had HIV, her boyfriend accused her of cheating, although he himself refused to be tested. When the woman tried to get away from him, he beat and chased after her. When she ran away, he threatened to tell everyone about her illness. Together with the Crisis Centre, we managed to consult this woman and provide her with psychological and legal support. She was able to escape the cycle of violence and rent a home.

We add all survivors to a secret chat, where they can get to know each other, share life experiences, get advice or recommendations on various issues. This is a safe online space where women feel supported and trust each other. 

We are very lucky. Women’s public organizations in the Kherson region are friendly and do not compete with each other. We also have mobile police brigades that act as a united front in solving the problem and do not leave victims of violence in a difficult situation. My biggest inner need is to help women accept their status, to teach them to live a full life with HIV … to show them that they can do everything and even more. We teach them to be active, motivated and successful no matter what.” 

The article was prepared within the framework of the UN Women Project “Advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment through Decentralization Reform of Ukraine” funded by Global Affairs of Canada.