Change your Policies, says Pheng

Pheng Pharozin, 27 - is a HIV-positive woman. Presently, she is coordinator of Cambodian Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (CCW), located in Phnom Penh. She got married in 2000, when she was doing her degree in Finance & Banking in the National University of Management (NUM) at Phnom Penh. After about two years of the marriage, her husband become progressively weaker and fell sick regularly. She decided to refer her husband to hospital and doctor encouraged the couple to take blood test for HIV, and both of them were found to be positive with HIV. Her husband died in 2004. Pharozin has one daughter (7 years old now) and her daughter is HIV-negative.

"My husband's death and my HIV-positive status shattered me inside. I felt embarrassed and hopeless. Fortunately, I was encouraged and supported by my family and friends. Now, I feel much better and warm, but am still panicky of my disease condition and anxious about the future of my daughter. However, I decided to turn my embarrassment to my strength and live for my daughter and to serve many other women like me." Pharozin says.

Meanwhile, Pharozin received information from the hospital about Vithey Chivit, the self help groups for the people living with HIV/ AIDS run by a group of positive people in Phnom Penh. She engaged with Vithey Chivit as a volunteer 2004 to support the home based care for the people living with HIV/AIDS.

''Vithey Chivit provided opportunity for me to attend the workshop on strengthening leadership ability of positive women. I slowly realized that many positive women in Cambodia have to face issues of stigma and social discrimination, marital rape, subordination, food insecurity, loss of employment opportunity, violation of human rights, lack of information and awareness on treatment, lack of shelter rights, etc., and all of these could come from the absence of strong network of positive women. So as a first step we took initiative to establish the positive Women's organization called Positive Women of Hope Organization (PWHO). PWHO had no donor support during that time and we managed the activities through contribution from the members'' - states Pharozin.

One month later, Pharozin was elected as the Director of the Hope Organization and later when the second line activists were in place to take leadership, she joined CCW as the Coordinator.

"Now, I am strong and confident enough to provoke HIV-positive women to struggle and claim their rights to lead a life with dignity. I lead CCW to promote self help groups in Phnom Penh and in 12 provincial HIV-positive women networks. Through "friends meet friends" meetings the CCW works at the local level to provide a safe space for women living with HIV to talk openly about their experiences and challenges they face. Addressing stigma and discrimination, enabling HIV positive women to make informed choices, and supporting women's human rights remain an important focus of CCW's work." Pharozin expressed.

Her hard work, commitment and passion for the cause of positive women have earned her wide credibility among the NGO and donor communities in Cambodia. In later 2006, Pharozin was one among the 10 women HIV activists who received the Neary Ratanak (Honorable woman) award from the Prime Minister Hun Sen.

"I become the member of Cambodian Alliance for Combating HIV/AIDS (CACHA) because I believe that CCW and CACHA together can play a crucial role to pool together the network of a wide range of social and women rights activist groups and nurture a process to build the alliance of women who are affected and infected by HIV/AIDS to come to the forefront of leadership to effectively lobby and ensure policy safeguards to ensure rights of such families." Pharozin said.

"In my view women and children in Cambodia are vulnerable to HIV. If government, non-governments, donor agencies, industry bodies and civil society don't commit to filter down policies, programs and implementation mechanism that targets basic needs of the women and children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, then achieving the so acclaimed MDG goals of reversing the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2015 will remain only in our mind as a sweet dream - but unfulfilled in reality. Therefore, I and HIV-positive women groups in Cambodia would like to appeal to government, non-government actors, and donor agencies to adopt and filter down policies, programs and implementation mechanism for stronger response, greater accountability and a more effective approach that targets basic needs of HIV-positive women". Pharozin added.

Interview by: Many

"In my view women and children in Cambodia are vulnerable to HIV. If government, non-governments, donor agencies, industry bodies and civil society don't commit to filter down policies, programs and implementation mechanism that targets basic needs of the women and children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, then achieving the so acclaimed MDG goals of reversing the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2015 will remain only in our mind as a sweet dream - but unfulfilled in reality. Therefore, I and HIV-positive women groups in Cambodia would like to appeal to government, non-government actors, and donor agencies to adopt and filter down policies, programs and implementation mechanism for stronger response, greater accountability and a more effective approach that targets basic needs of HIV-positive women".