Rachel
02-03-2009, 05:58 PM
A project to educate prisoners and prison staff on the truth about HIV/Aids is achieving remarkable results
Unlike the majority of prisoners, Jeab (not her real name) feels deeply thankful to have been sentenced to four and a half years' imprisonment at Min Buri prison.
"I would have been dead by now if I had not been penalised with imprisonment here," says Jeab, beaming.
Jeab, now 44, identified herself as a heroin addict when she was only 15. She got involved in heroin trafficking - the crime that eventually landed her in jail in 1988.
The sad, yet predictable, by-product of her using heroin intravenously was that Jeab became infected with HIV/Aids.
"We HIV/Aids-infected patients had to face enormous hostility from other prisoners as well as from prison guards," Jeab recounts. "We had different work shifts. We ate at different times. Other prisoners took a shower at 8 o'clock, but we had to wait until 9."
Worse, nobody paid even scant attention to prisoners suffering from HIV/Aids, she says. No one offered them treatment or emotional support. For ill convicts, there was nothing but doom and gloom.
Jeab's life changed completely, however, after she was shifted to Min Buri prison, where Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF, has been providing treatment and support to prisoners infected with HIV/Aids since 2003.
Full Article (which is a wonderfully inspiring piece, by the way!!) Bangkok Post (http://www.bangkokpost.com/leisure/leisurescoop/10962/breaking-free)
Unlike the majority of prisoners, Jeab (not her real name) feels deeply thankful to have been sentenced to four and a half years' imprisonment at Min Buri prison.
"I would have been dead by now if I had not been penalised with imprisonment here," says Jeab, beaming.
Jeab, now 44, identified herself as a heroin addict when she was only 15. She got involved in heroin trafficking - the crime that eventually landed her in jail in 1988.
The sad, yet predictable, by-product of her using heroin intravenously was that Jeab became infected with HIV/Aids.
"We HIV/Aids-infected patients had to face enormous hostility from other prisoners as well as from prison guards," Jeab recounts. "We had different work shifts. We ate at different times. Other prisoners took a shower at 8 o'clock, but we had to wait until 9."
Worse, nobody paid even scant attention to prisoners suffering from HIV/Aids, she says. No one offered them treatment or emotional support. For ill convicts, there was nothing but doom and gloom.
Jeab's life changed completely, however, after she was shifted to Min Buri prison, where Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF, has been providing treatment and support to prisoners infected with HIV/Aids since 2003.
Full Article (which is a wonderfully inspiring piece, by the way!!) Bangkok Post (http://www.bangkokpost.com/leisure/leisurescoop/10962/breaking-free)