World Street Children News

Tracey-Ann Wisdom, Sunday Gleaner Writer

Nineteen-year-old Kemar Cunningham dances skill-fully between two cars at the Hagley Park Road stop light, ignoring the insults from drivers and passers-by as he wipes soap from a car’s windshield. The light changes and the traffic begins to move, but he continues to dance in the road beside the moving vehicles as he heads towards a group of young men who have gathered on the steps of a building’s in the St. Andrew Parish Church yard.

The group, about 12 members strong, is dancing and singing along to a song, by dancehall artiste Mavado, playing on the small radio beside them.

While Cunningham and his colleagues are entertaining themselves, two more young men rush out into the line of traffic as the light once again turns to red. More insults are shouted through open car windows and another car pulls up as one of the boys steps off the curb. The boys are used to this form of danger, but something even more sinister than HIV/AIDS could easily rip their lives apart.

Hard to reach

According to the document, ‘Street Children and HIV/AIDS’, on the website streetchildren.org.uk, these young men and other children who live on the streets are at high risk of contracting HIV, for several reasons.

The document states: "Exclusion from services (including education and information on HIV/AIDS), stigma and discrimination, exposure to unprotected sex (sometimes in exchange for food, protection or money, or as a result of violence and exploitation by peers and adults), [and] illicit drug use all make street children vulnerable to HIV."

However, they are not being specifically targeted to benefit from the various HIV-prevention programmes in Jamaica. Carla Moore, behaviour change com-munication officer in the Ministry of Health, says this is partly because they are hard to reach.

One-on-one interaction necessary

"It is difficult to reach a large group of them in one place at one time, primarily because they live on the streets. They are not in schools, they do not belong to any specific community," she says, "It wouldrequire a lot of resources to reach them because it is almost certainly one-on-one interaction that would be necessary. The national programme does not have those resources at this time."

Moore also adds that street children require more than just HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) information.

Moore refers to Children First, a non-governmental organisation based in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, as the ministry’s sub-group that works with street children and other at-risk youths.

"We try to reach them in our general interventions and outreach activities. Special events such as World AIDS Day, Safer Sex Week, and other site-based interventions that take place at venues such as St. William Grant Park, Mandela Park and at plazas would also reach them," she says, "Also, they would be exposed to the bus-back billboards, radio and even TV ads of our mass-media campaigns."

Despite the lack of an intervention, Cunningham and his friends are aware of HIV/AIDS, and they are cautious. "Yu might see a girl an she look nice, but yu no know her, yu no know if she clean. Dem time de yu afi wear yu socks (condom)," Cunningham say. "An yu cyaa even look pon dem an know, so yu afi careful. Me love wear my socks."

Unprotected sex

JR, 18, one of Cunningham’s friends, says he also learned how the virus is transmitted while in classes at the St. Andrew Parish Church Care Centre, located on Ambrook Lane, not far from the church. "If yu have unprotected sex, yu can ketch it, or if you have a cut and somebody who have it have a cut and di blood ketch your cut," he says.

He also says that knowing this, he would not discriminate against any of his friends should they contract HIV. "Mi wouldn’t fraid fi drink out a di same cup wa him use or anyting," he says.

Although the Ministry of Health currently has no plans in place to develop an initiative specifically for street children, Ms. Moore explained that they will continue to work with Jamaica’s young people. "We continue to develop programmes for adolescents in all settings, in school and out of school. And we continue to try to make our interventions accessible to the public so everyone, including street children, can benefit," she says.

Last year, approximately 2,000 children were said to be living on Jamaica’s streets.