A team from the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) chaired by Sulaiman Al-Zayyadi visited nine-year-old Mashari, a Bangladeshi orphan who recently tested positive for HIV. The team made several recommendations, foremost of which is the immediate referral of the child to a specialist center so he can receive the necessary medical care. The team also called for an investigation to determine whether the child contracted the disease while he was in an orphanage in Makkah or if he had the disease prior to coming to the orphanage. Mashari was admitted to the Children's and Maternity Hospital in Makkah last month where doctors discovered he was HIV positive. Subsequently, the orphanage where he had spent the past two years, refused to take him back under the pretext that he had never been officially accepted to the orphanage on account of his status as an overstaying beggar. The NSHR team also stressed the importance of resolving the child's legal status in the Kingdom and advised the orphanage to keep detailed medical records on all of its residents and to separate children and older boys due to the fear of sexual assault.
