When Ndlela Howard Dhlamini disclosed his HIV-positive status more than a decade ago, ignorance about HIV led his local tavern to refuse to reuse the glass he drank from. This kind of HIV stigma may be a memory for Dhlamini but not for everyone living with the virus.
Mild mannered youth turned knife-wielding “zombies” – it might seem like a scene out of a horror film but it is real for some residents living outside the small Free State town of Bethlehem as the picturesque dorpie is the latest to fall under the spell of South Africa’s cheap street drug nyaope.
Born blind, abandoned by her parents, then gang raped and contracting HIV, may be too much for any one person to handle in one lifetime.
With free treatment widely available, HIV is no longer a death sentence, but for many people newly diagnosed with the virus thoughts of death are still not far off.
Rape remains under-reported nationally but there may be no rapes more hidden than those committed within families.
While locals are still reeling about the suicide of 14-year-old Klara Göttert, who took her life at Northgate Mall this week, another mother in the Free State’s rural town of Bethlehem is also mourning the death by suicide of her 18-year-old daughter.
Nokuthula Dlamini, 25, from Bethlehem, Free State got the surprise of her life when she was rushed to hospital with abdominal pains and only to discover that she was pregnant and in labour.
A 32-year-old Free State man who sent a video of himself and his under-age girlfriend having sex to friends and teachers at the girl’s school could be in hot water, says SA Police Service National Spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo.
Poverty-stricken children in the Free State are being forced into prostitution, often by their families, in order to be able to eat.
It is destroying her life, but a Free State mother won’t give up her ‘bronco’ cough mixture.
A young HIV-positive woman from the Free State is turning life’s lemons into lemonade, and inspiring others to live a positive life.
Nthabeleng Moloi alleges that Bethlehem’s Bohlokong Clinic closed its doors and sent her away after she arrived at the clinic in labour. She ultimately delivered her baby by herself.
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