Daring to dream: The women and girls on HIV’s new front line

Bright and proper in a vivid print dress, Fauza has been offered the only lucky break she has ever had – and seems determined to make the most of it. If it works out, her circumstances and those of her baby daughter will be lifted, perhaps even transformed. It’s not quite life and death but it’s not far off. Getting it right could make the difference between a lifespan measured in decades rather than years for mum and daughter. Confident at first, Fauza tells her story. Her father was a fisherman and they lived locally in a modest hand-built home, scraping a living from the Ugandan shores of Lake Victoria and its lush equatorial surrounds. But then she got pregnant. “When he found out, my father chased me from home… my parents say I’m a loss to them, that I have no future… the man whose child it was said ‘I don’t want you here’.” Just as in the UK, Ugandan women are routinely tested for HIV as part of their prenatal care and Fauza was told she was positive. She’s proud she found out in time – “my child is negative, I protected her” – but she is struggling… Read full this story

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