An Exercise in Futility: Saving Mandela's Children

Roselene

PROTECTING THE INNOCENT AND DEFENDING THE RIGHT TO LIFE

My name is Roselene. I died three days before I turned four months old. My mother died of AIDS when I was four weeks old. I was living with my maternal grandmother and father. The police fetched my body and I was pronounced Dead on Arrival at the Hospital. My vagina looks raw and sore and swollen, but maybe that is because I was neglected or maybe it was something else. My granny was not at home when I got hurt. My father was at home. I did not die straight away. I cried for a long time and blood was coming out my nose, mouth and ears. My granny fed me a bottle to try and stop me crying and eventually I was quiet. Very quiet and very still.

My burial certificate says I died of AIDS on 25^th August 2002.

There is an AIDS activist in the township where I lived. Her name is Dianne Lang. She went around to try and find out how it was possible that I died of AIDS at four months but my face was swollen, bruised and covered in blood. How can a post-mortem tell that I died of AIDS? Even if blood tests were taken, it is impossible to have got the results back in such a short time, given where I live and where the nearest blood laboratory is. She reported my strange cause of death to the Independent Complaints Directorate on the 27^th August 2002. On the same day, she received a phone call from the police, wanting a statement. A statement was given to the SAPS about a week later and since then, despite numerous calls to various Superintendents, Captains, Commissioners and the ICD, nothing happened for almost two months. Now we are waiting for a Magistrate to give an order to have my body exhumed for another post-mortem.

If it takes this long to sort out one death of one little baby girl, what hope do we have of the rescue of AIDS orphans whom are being used as prostitutes?

Are we so habituated to the AIDS and HIV situation in this country, that it no longer matters if a baby dies or just another mother dies of AIDS, even if the evidence is blatantly different to what we are being told.

If we are pounded with enough data, enough input, then we can be convinced of almost anything. People, young and old, smart or stupid, educated or not, have had their views and realities as well as their values altered by a relentless deluge of distorted data. Is this what has happened to us in South Africa with regard to the AIDS problem? If you are buying into all the misinformation of AIDS, then your world and values could be totally upside down and you may not even know it.

If you don't stand for something, you will fall for almost anything! Make a stand!

HIV and AIDS statistics mean nothing to anyone anymore. Look at Roselene's face, and tell me again, that HIV/AIDS does not touch you in some way.

Roselene was murdered, allegedly by her father. But does this make her father a murderer? Imagine having a crying baby that is hungry, no money to buy food, no employment, the mother of the baby dead from AIDS, your mother-in-law an alcoholic and you, yourself, feeling ill because you are also HIV+ and the baby does not stop crying. Imagine for a moment the stress that the father goes through when faced with this situation.

I investigated Roselene's death because it was the first blatantly obvious death caused not by AIDS, but by the circumstances that people find themselves in as a result of an AIDS death.

Support groups for father's left with babies after the mother has died of AIDS, has to be investigated and some support in terms of physical, emotional and mental needs, must be made available to these fathers. Women die faster from AIDS than do men and are four times more likely to become HIV+. This means that fathers are being left with babies to take care of. Most of those babies will test HIV positive by the time they are 18 months old, because there is no Nevirapine for the mother to child transmission prevention and there is no medication for the HIV positive mother, so she usually dies within four months of giving birth.

If you care, then make a stand. Send me e-mails, send me donations of clothes, linen or money. Volunteer to help me. Volunteer to make a difference. Help me to make clothes for the old dolls so that we can give them to the orphans for Xmas. Make teddies so I can give them to our abused kids. Find something that you no longer want – we need whatever we can get. Give me one tin of food a month. Feed a child for R50,00 a month. Accept the people around you, love them with all your heart, because tomorrow they might not be there. There are more HIV positive people than you know. They are your family, your neighbors, your co-workers, and the girl behind the desk or the one behind the till at the supermarket. Unless you have gone for a test and tested negative, the chances are that you are positive. Start with your family. Talk to them about HIV, hug them and love them. They are not immune to HIV and nor are you. Find out the truth about HIV/AIDS. Make it your business to make a stand. PLEASE !!!!