Former HIV/AIDS ambassador, Joyce Dzidzor Mensah
Former HIV/AIDS ambassador, Joyce Dzidzor Mensah, has said the number of proposals she received from men when she declared her Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) status, has been overwhelming.
Joyce tested positive in September 2007, and ever since she declared her status, she has suffered a lot of stigma from society, both in Ghana and abroad.
The frustrations in addition to the termination of her appointment as the Ambassador by the Ghana AIDS Commission, led the pariah to retract her statement saying she was negative.
According to her, uncountable men flooded her inbox with love messages when she made the decision to withdraw the statement.
“When I declared that I was negative, a lot of men approached me. The proposals I received cannot be counted; it could exceed 1000, both via social media and physically,” she told Kofi Adoma Nwanwani on Angel FM’s Anↄpa Bↄfoↄ, morning show.
If it would be recalled, Joyce together with her family took an HIV test live in camera to clear the air about the status of her family who also suffered some discrimination from the public as a result of their mother’s status.
According to the mother of the shunned kids, who was recently reinstated following the termination of her appointment over a business she was alleged to have been engaged in with a music band, the test was not only in the interest of her family but to protect herself as well from men.
“The test I did publicly was not only for my family but to keep men away from me. Men can disturb a lot. The ordeals I have had to deal with since my childhood has had to do with men.”
“When you are a virgin your problems are minimal, but once you engage in sexual relationship with men, because of the spiritual aspect of sex, the diseases that come with it, that is where your problems will begin. I was supposed to be a virgin. I wasn’t supposed to have sex” she explained.
Responding to the question of the cause of the attraction, however, she said many things may account for it, including charisma—the way one talks, how funny one is among others.