The 21 May press conference opened forum for HIV-Positive women and children from four provinces to give accounts of dire conditions and their urgent food needs, of food security for people living with HIV/AIDS including the exposure to the participants and the media the new research findings of conditions and appeal of PLHA.

All HIV-positive speakers who are representatives of PLHA from four provinces: Prey Veng, Battambang, Kampot and Phnom Penh said that they are really starving and that only medication, which is not enough too, cannot help them survive.

Our sufferings as PLHA including children are very great. For 2 years women and children have fallen seriously sick one after another despite ARV access. Because they toil," said Long Socheat, who is the leader of PLHA community

from Prey Veng province southern of Phnom Penh. She said that the provision of 30 kgs of rice a month is not enough and 40 PLHA families in her community are starving. The distribution of rice is not transparent. Sometimes, the rice is given one month late. The rice does not go to the needy. Only one out of ten PLHA gets the donation," added Socheat, saying that there is cronyism within the authority and NGOs themselves. This was assured by another male participant Sovannara, appealing to donor agencies to deliver donation directly to the people, not through local organisations.

According the recent study of the alliance team with 192 PLHAs in the provinces, 16 percent of the interviewees have never gotten any donation from nutrition programme from WFP and the 84 percent who do receive do not have enough to eat. Pry Phally Phoung, Senior Programme Officer from Womyn's Agenda for Change, the lead organisation of the Alliance said that a HIV-positive family gets 30 kgs of rice for one to three month period and that the proportion has not met the need of PLHAs.

A young positive girl from Prey Veng talks in a tapped voice because she did not want to identify herself to the audience and she made them burst into laughter, saying that her family has 8 people and they consume 3 kgs of rice a day. "I wish I had a bike and a watch so that I could go to school and fetch the medicines on time," said the girl.

The positive women speakers also appealed for support in the form of income generation so that there is sustainability in their livelihood. "We do not want them to help us always. We want them to help us stand up. And when we can walk, we will walk by ourselves," said Long Socheat, adding that the fight against HIV/AIDS can not be made possible without participation from HIV positive people themselves.


The conference brought together about 200 representatives from more than 30 local and International NGOs, media, members of Cambodian Alliance for Combating HIV/AIDS (CACHA) and about 100 activists, networks of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA), men who have sex with men (MSM), sex worker's unions, trade unions, NGOs, and student associations. Both print and electronic media have covered the event. The alliance has well collaborated with the National Television of Kampuchea in producing life stories of PLHAs and conveying messages of their demand for food security.