South Africa: HIV-Positive Woman Pays the Price for Speaking Out
OCTAVIA NASR, CNN ANCHOR: South Africa is said to have the highest rate of gender-based violence in the world for a country not at war. Females are especially vulnerable to sexual violence. In South Africa, a woman is raped every five minutes. This kind of violence leaves and women infected with HIV. And as SABC reports, those AIDS-infected women face persecution at home and in the courts.</s>SUSAN TEFFO, HIV PATIENT: On the day when I been, it was on Sunday, in the</s>TEFFO:  (through translator): I tried to stop my father, but I couldn't so he burnt us both.</s>S. TEFFO: If I knew that he be cruel to me, I would not have told him that I am HIV positive. MIA MALAN, SABC REPORTER (voice-over); It is not only Tumi and his mother that have suffered. The cost of speaking has left scars the whole family is battling to let go.</s>MAGGIE SHEUENYANE, VICTIMS'S SISTER: It is not only Susan's problem. We had to intervene -- like, you know, we were caught between, like it is our brother-in-law. It's our sister.</s>MALAN: While Susan Teffo and four-year-old child live with HIV, she's also dealing with an ongoing case of attempted murder against her husband. But it will be a long time before she seeks any justice.</s>S. TEFFO: Every time when I go to the court, they -- the case has been -- and they -- it is too far from where to go to the court. It is about one-and-a-half hour to travel the court.</s>MALAN: Money is what makes Susan leaving her husband impossible. Without his medical aid and financial support, she has nothing.</s>S. TEFFO: I don't have any help in medical aid. And it is very important to me to use his medical aid because the medicine that I use is too expensive.</s>MALAN: The only other option is family support. But most of them are poor, leaving Susan and her child in extreme poverty, to a life with a man that she believes that this, to her and son, that that has not broken her spirits.</s>S. TEFFO: You don't have to take this inside your heart. You have to be open to one of your sister or mother, that you are HIV positive.</s>SHEUENYANE: If we are going to keep it a secret, and the person would go out and infect other people. And then our nation is going to die.</s>MALAN: Susan and her child have paid one of the possible prices for speaking out and breaking the silence. They have been branded for it.</s>S. TEFFO: I don't know what to do, what to say, just to say thank God when I am still living.</s>MALAN: Mia Malan at the SABC for CNN WORLD REPORT.