Global Women's Voices: Share Personal Stories

Dr. Adedayo Adeyemi, Nigeria

Submitted by: Dr Adedayo Adeyemi

This is a story of a 20 year old girl
that suffered very early in life as an
orphan from street hawking of food and
tested positive to HIV at the age of 18.

FROM HAWKING TO HIV/AIDS INFECTION:

I was born into a family of 5. My father,
my mother, myself and 2 junior ones
(a boy and a girl). I lost my father and
mother in an auto accident at the age
of 9 years. Being the eldest born, I was
told to live with my uncle, my father's
immediate younger brother. He was nice
but the wife was very wicked and he always
listened to his wife. I was given a lot of
household chores to do. My uncle’s wife made
me to hawk food early in the morning
before going to school. I was to sell
everything before going to school. She made
me realize that without selling the food
I should never come back home to prepare
for school. I had to wake up around
5am fetch water for the household from
a nearby shallow well some distance from the
house. Her children never hawked early in
the morning but rather went to school
while I was made to hawk before going
to school. She always found one fault or
the other which made her not to give
me money for school in most of the time.

By 6am then I usually set out to hawk the
food. I went around our area to hawk, I was
desperate to sell fast so that I could go
to school since it was my priority.
I later discovered that I was able to
sell faster in a motor park. Motor parks
are usually made up off illiterate,
street urchins that are usually engaged
in drinking of local gin, and smoking of
both cigarettes and marijuana in the morning.
By the time I got to school, I would have been
tired, and sleepy in class with difficulty in
concentration. When I started hawking I
was in year one in secondary school. My
mates used to laugh at me as an unserious
girl but despite that I used to be
among the first 8 in a class of 40 students
because I knee I had the potential to top
the class if given equal opportunities like
the rest members of the class. I had good
knowledge of English and Mathematics and
I wanted to be a doctor.

There was this day at the age of 10 that I
set out to hawk food, a man told me that
he wanted to buy food and that I should follow
him to his bus. I followed him unsuspectingly
to this bus in a remote location in the motor
park around 6:15am when it was still dark.
The man rough handled me, stuffed clothe
in my month that morning.
This man raped me terribly that I was bleeding
profusely from my private part. I was rushed
to a nearby private hospital but my uncle's
wife did not come to check me in the hospital
despite the fact that she was told of the
incidence. My uncle checked me but did not have
money to pay, it was a good Samaritan that paid
the hospital bill. When I was discharged, my
uncle's wife gave me a thorough beating for
abandoning her business and allowing a man to rape
me. She did not care to listen to my explanation
despite different efforts to make her understand.
I had to resume my early morning hawking
immediately since my uncle’s wife will never
allow me to eat in the house and go to school
without doing so.

Another time, I was raped in the park for the
second time, although it was not as severe and
painful as the first but I had bruises all over
my body. I did not bother to go to the hospital
because I did not have money and I felt it wasn't
as bad as the first. I did not bother to tell
anybody at home due to the hostility in the family.
This second episode made me to run away from
home to another location in Lagos. Because I
did not have food to eat, I begged a woman who
he had a local restaurant to allow me
work for her by helping her cook and wash
plates. She agreed and assisted me by allowing
me to sleep in her house with her children.
I had to do her household chores before going
the restaurant. Then I had abandoned school at
the age of 12. This woman's husband s

updated: 12/6/2004 3:01:00 PM