ETHIOPIA: Zufan Alebachew: "I must stay healthy for my baby's sake."

ADDIS ABABA, 7 December 2007 (PlusNews) - Zufan Alebachew, 22, a sex worker in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, grew up in the Amhara region in the north. She told IRIN/PlusNews how a forced, early marriage affected the course of her life.

"I am the first-born of my parents; my father used to beat my mother. Until she got sick and died, she ensured that I went to school. Back then I had hopes and dreams, but after her death my father forced me to marry someone I didn't even know and I had to drop out of school.

"I began a new, unhappy life of higher responsibility and domestic violence. The household chores and field work were so tough to cope with that after two years I fled to Addis Ababa, where I got a job as a maidservant for the next four years. I also rejoined night school and finished secondary school, hoping that I could get a better-paid job.

"One day my employer's son - a drug addict - came home from where he used to work in the countryside. One night he left the house late at night and came back high. I was asleep. He woke me up. He was then very violent; he stepped on my throat and threatened that he would kill me if I screamed. He raped me.

"As a result, I got pregnant. I wanted to die; I thought my presence in this world was only a pain to me. I was kicked out of the house when my employers found out that I was pregnant. I have failed to find other employment, so out of desperation I have became a sex worker.

"On the advice of the doctors who followed my pregnancy, I had an HIV test. It was positive. After the counselling, I realised that I was the only one left for my child.

He is now two years old and did not contract the virus from me. I am now on antiretroviral drugs - I know I have to take care of myself in order to be a good mother."

rm/kr/he

Theme (s): HIV/AIDS (PlusNews),

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]