World Street Children News :: Sudan Streetkid News

Misinformed about HIV and vulnerable to it - © IRIN

 
Juba’s street children survive at risk of HIV

 
Misinformed street children are increasingly at risk of sexual abuse and HIV in South Sudan’s capital.

 
JUBA - In the marketplaces of Juba, South Sudan’s capital, young boys chant: "Washing feet, washing feet!" Others simply stand with their hands out, asking repeatedly for "a little money" or "a bit of food".

These children, who sleep on the steps of buildings or in abandoned market stalls, are the fallout of the 21-year civil war that split their region apart; many of them can barely remember the families they were torn from by the violence that engulfed their villages, forcing them to run.

Nobody knows exactly how many children are living on Juba’s streets, and few non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are working with them; there is no social service in place to help them locate their families or assist with family reintegration.

Relief workers in the area say that with little or no family support, no education and no protection, street children are increasingly at risk of sexual abuse and HIV.

James Mabior*, 15, is wiry and small for his age. He said that his family had fled the fighting in their village, but his mother had died shortly after arriving in Juba and his father was an alcoholic.

"My father was beating me at home - whenever I did a mistake he beat me. He told me that he was sick with malaria and he left to go back to our village," he said. "After that there was nobody to care for me so I came to the market." He had been living on the streets for at least three years.

Begging and scavenging food

Like the other boys he lives with in Konya Konya Market, Mabior survives by begging and scavenging food from local restaurants. He does not go to school and has no access to even the most basic of healthcare facilities.

One of the main dangers faced by homeless boys and girls is the sexual predators. "Sometimes it happens that men come and look for boys for sex; they are looking for boys and girls, but where I stay there are only boys," Mabior said.

"It is a mixture: Arabs, southerners, soldiers from all over … some boys will go straight away for the money, others will resist and refuse, but this means they can get beaten." He said the children earned between US$0.05 and $0.10 for providing sexual services.

No idea of how HIV is spread

Although Mabior had heard of HIV, he had no real understanding of how it is spread, or the dangers posed by unprotected sex.

"I can get it [HIV] from eating rotten food; this is the only way I know that you catch it," he said. "Nobody in my family ever informed me about this thing … I left school a long time ago and am willing to go back, but I can’t because I have no money."

Ben Poggo*, who lives in Juba’s Crown Market, said, "I have heard of HIV; if you have it you will slim up. AIDS comes through dirty things - you must keep clean and wash so that you don’t get it, but for us to keep clean on the streets is hard."

Mary Isaac runs the Living Water Children’s Home, a centre for 37 boys who used to live on the streets. "Boys living on the streets have no protection and are vulnerable to sexual abuse by many people," she said.

"There is only one NGO doing educational work with these children in a very limited capacity, and the numbers of children are growing daily. Many are too scared to seek out help, and will not talk about the abuse they suffer."

Street children particularly vulnerable to HIV

Rev Benjamin Lokio Lemi, head counsellor at Juba’s voluntary counselling and HIV testing centre, told IRIN/PlusNews that street children were particularly vulnerable to HIV because they lacked knowledge about transmission and few knew their status or went for treatment.

"There needs to be a campaign to raise awareness of HIV amongst children living on the streets; children need to be encouraged to know their status so they can avoid risky behaviour," Lemi said. "But testing is voluntary, and they will only come forward to be tested if they have been educated."

The government of South Sudan is developing legislation that will put in place systems for the care and protection of vulnerable children, including street children, and police in the region have received some training on child protection.

*Names have been changed

SUDAN: Juba’s street children survive at risk of HIV

---

Photo: Kate Holt/IRIN

A street boy sleeps rough in one of Juba’s markets

JUBA, 25 June 2007 (IRIN) - In the marketplaces of Juba, South Sudan’s capital, young boys chant: "Washing feet, washing feet!" Others simply stand with their hands out, asking repeatedly for "a little money" or "a bit of food".

These children, who sleep on the steps of buildings or in abandoned market stalls, are the fallout of the 21-year civil war that split their region apart; many of them can barely remember the families they were torn from by the violence that engulfed their villages, forcing them to run.

Nobody knows exactly how many children are living on Juba’s streets, and few non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are working with them; there is no social service in place to help them locate their families or assist with family reintegration.

Relief workers in the area say that with little or no family support, no education and no protection, street children are increasingly at risk of sexual abuse and HIV.

James Mabior*, 15, is wiry and small for his age. He told IRIN/PlusNews that his family had fled the fighting in their village, but his mother had died shortly after arriving in Juba and his father was an alcoholic.

"My father was beating me at home - whenever I did a mistake he beat me. He told me that he was sick with malaria and he left to go back to our village," he said. "After that there was nobody to care for me so I came to the market." He had been living on the streets for at least three years.

Begging and scavenging food

Like the other boys he lives with in Konya Konya Market, Mabior survives by begging and scavenging food from local restaurants. He does not go to school and has no access to even the most basic of healthcare facilities.

One of the main dangers faced by homeless boys and girls is the sexual predators. "Sometimes it happens that men come and look for boys for sex; they are looking for boys and girls, but where I stay there are only boys," Mabior said.

"It is a mixture: Arabs, southerners, soldiers from all over … some boys will go straight away for the money, others will resist and refuse, but this means they can get beaten." He said the children earned between US$0.05 and $0.10 for providing sexual services.

No idea of how HIV is spread

Although Mabior had heard of HIV, he had no real understanding of how it is spread, or the dangers posed by unprotected sex.

"I can get it [HIV] from eating rotten food; this is the only way I know that you catch it," he said. "Nobody in my family ever informed me about this thing … I left school a long time ago and am willing to go back, but I can’t because I have no money."

Sometimes it happens that men come looking for boys for sex…some boys will go straight away for the money, others will resist and refuse, but this means they can get beaten.

Ben Poggo*, who lives in Juba’s Crown Market, said, "I have heard of HIV; if you have it you will slim up. AIDS comes through dirty things - you must keep clean and wash so that you don’t get it, but for us to keep clean on the streets is hard."

Mary Isaac runs the Living Water Children’s Home, a centre for 37 boys who used to live on the streets. "Boys living on the streets have no protection and are vulnerable to sexual abuse by many people," she said.

"There is only one NGO doing educational work with these children in a very limited capacity, and the numbers of children are growing daily. Many are too scared to seek out help, and will not talk about the abuse they suffer." 

Street treet children particularly vulnerable to HIV

Rev Benjamin Lokio Lemi, head counsellor at Juba’s voluntary counselling and HIV testing centre, told IRIN/PlusNews that street children were particularly vulnerable to HIV because they lacked knowledge about transmission and few knew their status or went for treatment.

I can get HIV from eating rotting food; this is the only way I know that you can get it.

"There needs to be a campaign to raise awareness of HIV amongst children living on the streets; children need to be encouraged to know their status so they can avoid risky behaviour," Lemi said. "But testing is voluntary, and they will only come forward to be tested if they have been educated."

The government of South Sudan is developing legislation that will put in place systems for the care and protection of vulnerable children, including street children, and police in the region have received some training on child protection.

*Names have been changed

Living on the Streets

Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)
United Nations
October 1, 2006

(Photo: © Noel King/IRIN)

A dozen boys discuss the allure of glue and solvents during their time on the streets of the Sudanese capital Khartoum. Solvents made them braver when they attempted to pick pockets or pilfer from shops. The beatings the police administered hurt less when they were high. Their dreams were vivid and pleasant. Glue filled their empty stomachs for hours when a piece of bread would only stave off hunger for a few minutes.

"It makes you forget," Edward, 16, says.

The other boys nod in agreement. Edward, who doesn’t give his second name, has many things he would prefer to forget, including the death of his best friend, Bol, who got high a year ago, stumbled into the Nile for a nighttime swim and never emerged alive.The boys are just a sample of the thousands of children who live and work on Khartoum’s streets. Although there are no official numbers, the children are a common sight, sleeping in the markets, stealing what they can or taking petty jobs to make a little money, which is often spent on drugs.

At Bridge of Hope, a non-profit organization on the outskirts of Khartoum, they come to recuperate, to learn, and to rebuild shattered lives.

"These kids are like milk. You stir it and eventually the cream rises to the top," says founder Barbara Gouldsbury, who has worked with Sudanese street children for 13 years.

Gouldsbury, a former nurse, started Bridge of Hope in 2003 and works with 15 Sudanese staff, who teach and look after the 33 boys living at Lundin house, a residential center named for the Swedish family that donated the house. Another 45 boys are enrolled at Bridge of Hope’s school next door and 100 more turn up at the drop-in center where they are able to wash, eat, and play.

"Society creates street children and then punishes them for being street children," says Gouldsbury, who has often had to demand medical care for the boys after hospitals turn away even the desperately ill.

The majority of street children in Khartoum are southern Sudanese. Two million southerners, displaced by Sudan’s 21-year civil war, live in and around the capital. Many have settled in squalid camps, which is where many of the street children come from. They are children from families with absentee fathers and mothers who are too poor, too exhausted, or too traumatized to care for their children.

Four-year-old Hamdan, for example, was found sleeping in the garden of Lundin house after his brother was accepted into the refuge. The staff thought he was too young to be away from his mother and took him home. But Hamdan returned to the garden every night and was allowed to stay.

He is wary, but now enjoys the traditional dances the others have taught him. The wide-eyed, silent boy comes alive as he struts around the floor, stomping his feet.

Angelo was almost strangled by his mother. Gouldsbury found him in a gutter, emaciated and ill, a decade ago. Now, he is a grinning young man who has decided to move to the southern Sudanese town of Aweil to look for work.

Challenges

Working with the boys is full of challenges, primarily discipline, say the staff at Bridge of Hope.

"Some of them have lived in the market for years," says Ariath Alfred, who works at Lundin house. "They don’t like being told what to do."

But they learn, as is evidenced by the nighttime routine in which the boys are expected to iron their school uniforms, help prepare dinner, and finish their schoolwork.

The staff have their own reasons for accepting the low-paying position.

"When I see these street boys I know that if I had not had good care from my family, I would have become one of them," says Ariath.

Gouldsbury and her staff insist that all children blossom with proper care and offer the boys as proof. James, 21, lost his father in an accident. His mother could not take care of him. At nine, he was living on the streets, addicted to glue. Last month, after years of care with Bridge of Hope and another center, James passed his Sudan certificate and received a diploma.

Most of his classmates were five or six years younger than him, but that didn’t bother James at all.

"I look forward now to the future," he says. "I have nobody from outside the center to hold me up, but I have many brothers and sisters behind me that I have to hold up and support. I have to work hard so I can get a good job."

And they dream too. Edward says that when he was using glue he had a vivid fantasy of owning a luxurious car — a fantasy that almost sustained him. But Ariath interjects quietly.

"You can’t live your life in your imagination," he tells the boy.

Edward nods his head. He understands. © IRIN

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]