By Aaron Quoi with journalRAGE
Sanniquellie-She used to sell dried fish by the roadside in Sanniquelle City, laugh with her friends, completed vocation training in catering and dream of entering the Nimba University. Today, Evelyn Kpo, name changed to hide her identity, hides in her rented room, afraid to walk in the streets of the city she once called home.
“People started staying away from me,” she said quietly. “Friends I used to eat with, laugh with, even study with , they just went. I was not feeling good. I even wanted to kill myself.”
She says her confidential medical status was exposed by her boyfriend who she trusted without her permission. A betrayal that cost her her business, her educational dream, her relationship, and very nearly, her life.
A Secret That Was Not meant to Share
Evelyn, 30, discovered her HIV status during a pregnancy checkup at the hospital. Doctors asked her to bring her boyfriend so they could both receive counseling together. She agreed, never imagining that what was shared in that private medical room would soon be the talk of the entire community.
Her boyfriend, she said, told another woman about her status, thereby triggering a chain of gossip that spread through Sanniquellie like a wild fire.
“I did not give him permission to share my status,” she mentioned tearily. “He went and told people; then it spread.”
Soon,she revealed, neighbors were finger pointing. Friends walked away. A community that once knew her as a hardworking young woman now only saw her as adiagnosis.
“She Sat Inside. She Could Not Go Out.”
The damage was witnessed by people in the community. Michael David, a resident of the community in Sanniquillie, who knows Evelyn, said he woke up one morning to find people talking about a woman in the community who had HIV.
“A man was going around telling people she had HIV,” Michael said. “That is how it spread.”
He watched as her life altered before his eyes.
“The way she used to go outside and sit with her friends, she could not do that anymore,” he said. “She just sat inside.”
He was clear about what the community should have done differently.
“When someone has that kind of situation, you should keep it to yourself,” he said. “Going around and spreading it in the community, it can make the person kill themselves. Or it can make them go mad.”
A Clinician’s Warning
At the St Mary Clinic in Sanniquellie City, the HIV focal clinician sees cases like Evelyn’s too often. Speaking to this reporter, the clinician explained how deeply stigma cuts into the lives of people living with HIV, and how it drives them away from the very care that could save their lives.
“When they are stigmatized within the community, even coming to the clinic for their medication becomes difficult,” the clinician said. “They know that when they walk in the street, people will be pointing at them ‘That person has HIV.’ That alone is enough to make them feel like they are already dying.”
The clinician said that when patients come to the facility, they are counseled on confidentiality and encouraged to protect their own privacy. But the burden, the clinician noted, should not fall on patients alone.
“Someone’s HIV status is not to be shared with any other person unless the patient themselves gives you permission,” the clinician said firmly. “This is now a serious problem we are facing.”
The clinician also warned that people whose status is exposed without consent have legal rights.
“The person has the right to take legal action against you,” the clinician said.
Despite that, Cecelia has received no justice. The man who exposed her status has faced no consequences.
A Leader’s Quiet Advice
The community chairlady, who spoke to journalRAGE, said she has seen what happens when HIV stigma goes unchecked. When cases of discrimination are brought to her, she tries to handle them with care and with speed.
“I will bring you close to me privately,” she said, “because if people know, they will go away from you, even your own children, even your friends.”
She said her first advice to anyone outed without consent is to go to the hospital. She acknowledged that not everyone in Sanniquellie understands the importance of medical privacy, but that those who do must speak up.
“HIV is not something you can go to the store and buy,” she said. “She might get it, or he might get it, through a mistake or from someone. Advise people, please stop it.”
She said community leaders must use every platform they have – town halls, community forums, public meetings to change the way people treat those living with HIV.
“We can help in that direction by advising people: leave the person. HIV is one thing. It is not everything about who they are.”
Relocated Twice, Still Running
Evelyn did not stay in the first community after the stigma became unbearable. She moved, hoping a fresh start somewhere new would give her peace. But her past followed her.
“My boyfriend came to the new place and started insulting me again among people,” she said. “He was calling me names, telling people what happened, making my life more difficult. So I had to relocate again.”
Two relocations. Two attempts to escape a secret that was never hers to carry in public. And still, no peace.
What kept her going, she said, was not justice, it was care. A peer educator from an NGO and the HIV focus clinician encouraged her.
“They told me life is not over for me,” Evelyn said, her voice steadying. “They educated me. They made me feel more comfortable again.”
An Advocacy Group Sounds the Alarm
The executive director of the Liberia Equality Network, an organization working on HIV rights and awareness across Nimba County, did not mince his words when asked about cases like Cecelia’s.
The director said the rising wave of stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV, particularly in rural and semi-urban communities is deeply troubling and must be confronted head-on. He stressed that LEN has been on the ground in those communities for years, fighting a quieter but equally dangerous enemy: ignorance.
“The lack of knowledge about HIV in these communities is one of the core problems we keep having to address,” the director said. “We are constantly working to educate our people, because when people do not understand how HIV is transmitted, fear takes over, and fear turns into cruelty.”
It was through that very community presence that Cecelia’s case came to the organization’s attention. The director said one of LEN’s peer educators, someone embedded in the community and trusted by residents, brought the situation forward after learning what Cecelia had endured.
“Our peer educator brought this case to us,” he said. “Once we became aware, we immediately provided counseling support through our HIV focal person to help her cope with what she was going through.”
The director said cases like Cecelia’s are not just individual tragedies, they are a warning sign that communities still have a long way to go.
“What happened to this woman is a violation of her dignity and her rights,” he said. “No person living with HIV should be chased out of their home, lose their business, and be forced to abandon their education simply because someone chose to betray their trust. This must stop.”
He called on community leaders, health workers, religious figures, and ordinary citizens to take responsibility for changing the culture of shame that surrounds HIV, warning that as long as stigma is allowed to thrive, people will continue to hide from treatment, and lives will continue to be lost needlessly.
The Law Exists. Enforcement Does Not.
Sections 18.23 through 18.26 of the amended Public Health Law of the Revised Liberia Code of Laws make it illegal to disclose the HIV status of any person without their consent. Violators can face fines of L$10,000 and revocation of licenses or operating permits.
In practice, enforcement remains a distant promise.
Like Dominic Bropleh — a gay man living with HIV who in 2023 accused FHI360 of publicly outing his status through a campaign placard — Evelyn has seen no legal consequences for those who exposed her.
The National AIDS Commission estimates there are 36,000 people living with HIV in Liberia. Women account for nearly two-thirds of that number — roughly 24,000 people. UNAIDS data shows HIV prevalence among women aged 15–49 stands at 1.2%, double the 0.6% rate among men.
“Women by far constitute the most affected group in Liberia’s HIV burden,” Dr. Cecelia Nuta, chairperson of the National AIDS Commission, said during a press conference in November 2025.
Yet, it is women like Evelyn, already the most vulnerable, who bear the heaviest cost of stigma and the lightest protection from the law.
Evelyn is still young. She still has dreams. But today, she carries them quietly away from the pointing fingers and icy stares.
This story was funded by the European Union under the Liberia Media Empowerment Project (LMEP). Its contents are the sole responsibility of journalRAGE and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.