“Disappeared” from Longshan Re-education Centre and arrived at her sister’s home 14 days ago. Today, returned to Shenyang for treatment. Hopes to remarry in the future.

On May 20th, a sex-worker who was undergoing re-education at Shenyang’s Longshan Re-education centre, Liu Yan (not her real name) tested positive for HIV. This incident grabbed the attention of the Shenyang city government and the Dongling District Centre for Disease Control.

On May 26th, staff at the Shenyang CDC received a shocking piece of news, the re-education centre had “cleaned out” the sex-worker.

Where was the woman with HIV? Had she come into any “dangerous contact” with anyone in the few days since her disappearance? Did she know about her own condition? What was her psychological state? Yesterday, after much hard-work, this newspaper’s reporter finally tracked down the “cast-out” female HIV carrier Liu Yan.

After a virtually overnight exchange, the reporter finally managed to persuade Liu Yan to accept arrangements through the Longshan Re-education centre, to return to get treatment in Shenyang.

“People infected with HIV” are already under the control of the Tieling City Health authorities.

On May 29th, the telephone on the desk of Teiling City’s Changtu County CDC’s deputy head Zhao Huaizhi began to ring.

The call was from the Teiling City Chantu County Qujia Township’s Health Protection and Prevention Station. An employee at the station reported that the woman with HIV who engaged in prostitution, Liu Yan, had already taken home from the Longshan Re-education centre by a relative.

According to Zhao Huaizhi, the Changtu CDC had immediately notified the Tieling CDC and the country health authorities immediately after receiving a call from the Longshan Re-education Centre. They subsequently launched an investigation into Liu Yan’s identity and casefile. But the results showed that there was no such person. “Was Liu Yan’s HIV positive status real?” It wasn’t until the Protection and Prevention Station reported back that staff at the CDC dispelled this doubt and confirmed the fact that Liu Yan was HIV positive.

On June 1st, the Tieling City CDC and the Changtu County CDC (including Zhao Huaizhi and many other staff members) drove towards Liu Yan’s place of residence --- her sister’s home in Changtu County, Bamian City, Kaiyuan Village. Under the auspices of carrying out an “Infectious Diseases Investigation” the people from the CDC did tests on Liu Yan and told her not to travel far. They said she could only move about near her residence.

At the same time, the Tieling City Health Department analysed the probable route of Liu Yan’s HIV transmission. Because Liu Yan had admittedly engaged in sex-work in Shenyang, sexual transmission was the most likely route.

The path to prostitution after failing to get wages for work.

From the day she was taken back to Tieling by her sister-in-law, Liu Yan began to wonder about her HIV status, “there are more than 1000 people undergoing reeducation through labour in Longshan, why have they released only me?” The tests carried out by the local Health Department and the symptoms that she had experienced since the winter – persistent high fevers and coughing etc – Liu Yan had basically begun to understand that she contracted HIV.

Through the explanations of her relatives and her own testimony, we are able to sketch the sad experiences of Liu Yan’s life.

Liu Yan was born in 1954 into a family of ordinary farmers in Kaiyuan Village, Bamian Town in Changtu County. When she was 28 she married her now ex-husband, a man surnamed Dong. In 1987, she moved to a small coal district in Manzhouli in Inner Mongolia. Because she was unable to conceive, relations with her husband become more and more distant. When her husband began to “seek other women outside” Liu Yan could only endure in silence.

In 1994, Liu Yan left Manzhouli and returned to her home in Changtu County, Tieling alone. Early on Liu Yan had adoped a daughter. The daughter is now aged 19 and living with her own parents.

In order to make a living, Liu Yan came to Shenyang in 1996 and found work in a pharmaceuticals factory, as a domestic helper, doing the washing-up in a restaurant and as a cook on a construction site.

Her working experiences over a few years taught her that bosses often withheld or delayed her wages. “I worked so hard over such long hours and I didn’t get even a cent. (So I thought) I might as well do that (sex-work) because I would be paid on the spot.” In July 2003, Liu Yan was detained by police for 10 days because for prostitution.

As Liu Yan remembers it, in all the time that she engaged in prostitution, there were only three or four people who were regular customers. These people were all from the very bottom rung’s of society and included a fruit-seller, a rubbish collector and a street-sweeper. The longest period of contact was around a month, the shortest around a week.

Since last winter, Liu Yan has continued to suffer from high fevers, “At one point I couldn’t even get out of bed. My muscles had become stiff.” She had sought treatment at a certain hospital in Shenyang and in Jilin Province’s Siping City, but the cause of her illnesses was never diagnosed.

As to how she became infected, Liu Yan is unable to say for sure but she counts her ex-husband as one of the main candidates for the transmission of the AIDS virus to herself. She says that during their stay in Manzhouli, her husband’s sex-life was “very complex”. At present the Tieling Health Department is putting all efforts into tracing the whereabouts of Liu Yan’s ex-husband.

After returning home “Noone paid any attention, so I absconded”

Since discovering her status, Liu Yan has shouldered a heavy psychological burden, “I am most worried about my 92 year old father and 89 year old mother, as well as my just-turned 19 year-old daughter.” Liu Yan has not yet told the seniors about her illness because she’s afraid that relatives and neighbours would laugh if they knew about her condition. She is too afraid to leave the house.

According to Liu Yan’s sister-in-law, Wang X, on May 22nd, the boyfriend of a friend surnamed Lu found Wang (who runs a barbeque business in Shenyang’s Heping District) and told her that the Longshan Reeducation centre was looking for her, asking her to immediately come to visit her sister-in-law Liu Yan.

On 22nd, Wang hurried to Longshan, “a person-in-charge surnamed Tang told me that Liu Yan had contracted a sexually transmitted disease.” On May 24th, Wang visited Longsan again, “they told me Liu Yan had AIDS, they asked me to take her home to seek treatment”. Wang said the family didn’t have money to pay for treatment, “At the time, people at the re-education centre told me that they had already notified the government authorities back home and that all I had to do was to take her back to get treatment.”

At 14:00 on 24th, Wang settled Liu Yan into a guesthouse in Heping District and returned to her barbeque business. While she was at the guesthouse, Wang arranged for Liu Yan to be in her own room. On the morning of the 25th, Wang hurried to the Winxing Police Station in Heping District to retrieve Liu Yan’s Identity card in order to buy a train ticket for Liu Yan to return home alone on the 13:27 train.

Liu Yan arrived back home the same day at 17:00. Liu Yan recalls that on April 25th, she was taken by police to a place called “Wan Jia Lan”. She was taken 30 days later to a women’s Self-Strengthening School. It wasn’t until May 19th that she was taken to the Longshan Re-education Centre. In the 20 plus days before she got she was there, she was not isolated. It wasn’t until she reached the Longshan Re-education Centre that she was placed in her own room. “Every day, apart from the people who delivered the meals, I virtually saw no other people. Nobody ever talked to me.”

When she learnt that she could go home, Liu Yan was very happy, “free at last,” but not long after she got home Liu Yan began to slowly realize that, “conditions at home were definitely not as good as Shenyang. The re-education centre had released me, was that because they no longer wanted to manage me?” Liu underwent a big psychological change, “If no one was managing me, I could just abscond.”

Liu Yan told the reporter that a few days after she got home, she had nightmares nearly every night. She dreamt there were people who were trying to harm here, “Every day, I was unable to sleep, my stomach hurt so much and I needed to change my underpants virtually every day because there would be bloodstains on them every day.”
When the reporter asked her what plans she had for the future, Liu Yan told the reporter that she planned to remarry, to find someone she could be depend upon.

Longshan Re-education Centre pledges to take Liu Yan back today

Last night at around 22:45, a Lin X from the Longshan Re-education Centre called and said that someone from the centre would be sent to Changtu to collect Liu Yan and take her back. Liu Yan was told she must wait at home. The reporter gave Liu Yan this good news and saw a cloud of concern come over Liu Yan’s face. “I’m afraid, I daren’t go back. I have committed an error, by calling me back, do they want to punish me? If they want me to go back but don’t give me treatment, then what can I do?” Liu Yan said with pain as she stared in the blackness outside the window. After strong persuasion from the reporter, Liu Yan finally agreed to accept the Longshan Re-education Centre’s arrangements to return to Shenyang for treatment.

What will become of the life of this female HIV carrier who has been the subject of such concern? This newspaper will continue to pay close attention.

(Huashang Morning News: Yuan Li Mu Yunping)
[Editor: Long Qiuxiu]