The Tajik NGO did not intend to play matchmaker when it established a way to provide legal assistance to HIV-positive women, according to Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service.
But that's precisely what the Network of Women Living With HIV has done, after leading at least a dozen HIV-positive people to love and marriage.
"Sometimes HIV-positive young men come here to seek advice about marriage and family, and they ask us to help them find a suitable partner among the women registered with our network," says the agency's head, Tahmina Haidarova, noting that numbers are exchanged only with the consent of each person.
While in name the center is for women, men are not excluded from taking advantage of its services. Most of the men who visit are aged between 18 and 35, and some are looking to find marriage partners among fellow HIV patients.
Some 700 women are currently registered with the network, which helps provide them with access to healthcare, education, and welfare or other assistance.
Haidarova says there are many young single mothers among them, often having been left by their husbands or ostracized by their families. She says many of the women want to rebuild their lives.
In 2017, six couples met and married through the Dushanbe-based NGO.
Specialists at the NGO say marriage and family plans have had a positive impact on their clients' health and mental well-being, giving them a new lease on life.
The men looking for a life partner at the HIV help center tend to be unconcerned if the woman has been previously married or already had children, Haidarova says. They want a good woman who is serious about marital life.
The women often want to make sure their suitor is not a drug addict and strictly follows doctors' advice in keeping healthy, she adds.
According to official statistics, the number of people infected with HIV in Tajikistan stands at 7,552 — including 2,820 women — in the country of some 8 million.
The national HIV-AIDS center says that 1,004 children have been born to HIV-positive mothers since 2004.Some 600 of those children were born without HIV.
The main problem in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Tajikistan is people's relatively low level of awareness about measures that can be taken to prevent the spread of infection.
Most of the women who get infected claim that they married HIV-positive men who knew their status but didn't disclose it.
Tajik authorities have now made it compulsory for men and women to undergo thorough medical check-ups and provide a medical certificate before getting married.
