Story of AIDS Infected Boy and His Family

Story of AIDS Infected Boy and His Family


This is the poorest family with a few members infected with AIDS. This family consists of 6 members including one 78- years-old grand mother, three children and a couple living in Ang Tonlorp village, Samraong Tong commune, Samraong Tong district, Kampong Speu province. The grand mother stays home to look after her three grand children and does the sewing of palm tree leaves to make roofs for sale to get income for extra family support. To date, she is elderly and even debilitated and lives with her daughter and son in-law. The couple does their daily work, the husband does the construction work and the wife works for the garment factory. They both receive small monthly wages and the money earned is just for paying back to the debtor. The grand mother makes money of about 8,000 riels (USD2) per day from her work just for buying rice and medicine for her AIDS-infected grand son. Presently, this family lives depending upon monthly rice borrowing with monetary interest from other villagers because the money earned has been used to repair her house and to pay the interest for monthly purchasing of meat, vegetable and rice. As her family has no land, she lives on the land belonging to the village. This family living is not good. They live in the face of many problems such as the lack of hygienic materials, clothes, food and other materials used in the house. She has three grand children, the first grand child is El Roeun, 11 years old, the second grand child is El Sokha, 10 years old and the third grand child is El Phat, 4 years old. Now, the first grand child has AIDS infection and is unhealthy and the second grand child begins to get skinnier. Before, this AIDS infected boy had never received any medicine from the hospital. Since the community health coordinator of Khmer Association for Development reported this case to the monthly meeting organized by Kampong Speu Provincial Department of Health, the health officers came to see him and then they decided to send him to the referral hospital. Latter on due to lack of transport means, Khmer Association for Development supplied this family with small money used for traveling to the Kampong Speu referral hospital to get monthly medicine. Fortunately, the second and third grand children have escaped from AIDS infection. As for their mother, she has infected AIDS for 14 years. As for her husband, he didn’t know whether or not he has contracted AIDS because he has never got blood test for AIDS yet. But recently, this man has been arrested and sentenced in jail for 20 years for raping the psycho girl in Phom Thmey village, Samraong Tong commune, Samraong Tong district, Kampong Speu province. According to the information received from one of villagers, this family really suffers from much difficulty in life and even from domestic violence in which sometimes this man beats the wife that bust in cries all over the house and sometimes, swears at the elderly mother in-law who tries very hard to work to get money to support the whole family and to feed her grand children. According to the interview of community health coordinator with the mother of these three children, the difficulties that her family faces are as follows:

  • Lack of proper house, clothes, food and warmness in the family,
  • The son has been infected with AIDS,
  • The elderly mother works very hard to feed the three grand children,
  • She has also been infected with AIDS,
  • The neighbors discriminate against her family,
  • The children lose a chance to go to school,
  • Her husband has been imprisoned,
  • Her family doesn’t have a bicycle, sanitary toilet and homestead land,
  • Her family is in debt,
  • Her family lives without sanitation,

She has requested the Khmer Association for Development to:

  • continue to support the traveling costs for her to referral hospital,
  • supply the children with study materials, clothes and enough food,
  • provide her family with a bicycle and sanitary toilet,
  • take care of her family so that the neighbors give up their discrimination,
  • provide her with a plot of land and her children with a chance to go to school.