Children deprived of right to protect themselves against HIV says report
Adolescents in the developing world are being denied the right to protect themselves from AIDS, says a new publication by the children’s agency Plan.
It says young people are taking risks, even when they are well informed about HIV and AIDS. This is because social, economic and cultural realities stop them being able to protect themselves.
Educating young people about how HIV is transmitted, and telling them how to avoid infection is not enough, says the report, Circle of Hope.
It details how adolescents in low income countries struggle with a daily conflict between behaviour change messages (promoting sexual abstinence, faithfulness, or condom use), and the overwhelming social and economic realities that severely limit their choices of adopting these behaviours.
The report says that most young girls in poor communities do not have the option to protect themselves through abstinence or condom use. They may be faithful to one partner, but often have little choice about who this partner is nor any influence on his faithfulness. Cultural norms force many girls into child marriages, while economic necessity forces others into trading sexual favours. And in many societies, boys are under intense pressure to show their masculinity by being abusive to girls and practicing unsafe sex.
In Brazil, Plan works with groups of adolescent boys to decrease gender violence and help them adopt safer sexual behaviour. With games, drama, and group discussions, the groups explore common beliefs and attitudes, for instance that men have more sexual urges than women, that sexual and reproductive health issues are women’s concerns, and that men have the right to multiple partners while women do not.
At the outset the boys’ opinions and perceptions overwhelmingly reflect the prejudices of the macho culture in which they are growing up. But by the end of the program many of the boys speak of how their attitudes and behaviour has changed.
Sixteen year-old Junior commented:
“I have learned to be more responsible and less prejudiced against girls… and I am not at all embarrassed to obtain and use a condom.”
Plan’s Chief Executive Tom Miller says:
“Children and adolescents understand the real-life challenges faced by young people. And they know how best to communicate the message to their own generation. That is why Plan believes children should be in the driving seat of its responses to HIV and AIDS.”
“Children understand the barriers to safe behaviour and are in a position to bring about changes that can be sustained into the future. Childhood is the time when attitudes are formed and behavioural patterns established. For these reasons, the report argues that it is vital for children and young people to play a central role in the response to AIDS in their communities.”
Many teenagers have developed their own strategies of dealing with these conflicts. Yet they are rarely asked for their opinions when million dollar HIV prevention projects are developed.
In the West African republic of Togo, young people told Plan that the main problem in their community is poverty. They say that parents do not have enough money to send their children to school and some parents need their children to earn money towards the family income. They force their daughters to abandon school to get married, or to work as a market trader. And sometimes they even send their children abroad to do domestic work.
The report outlines Plan’s child-centred response to HIV and AIDS. This response focuses on involving children and addressing their priority concerns. In line with their concerns, it abolishes the artificial distinctions between HIV prevention, care of those already infected, and measures to lessen the impact of the epidemic on affected communities.
Plan says that in order to be effective in the long term, programs and policies for HIV prevention and care among children and young people should:
- address the social, economic and cultural factors that underpin sexual behaviour
- meet the priority needs of the majority of children in the community
- give children and young people an active role in identifying key issues, determining priorities, and implementing the response.
- Download the full report: Circles of Hope (PDF, 4.4 Mb)
*Plan undertook a consultation exercise with adolescents in the district of Elavagnon, north of the Togolese capital of Lome.
Background
Children’s priority concerns, and Plan’s responses, are highly influenced by the extent to which each community is affected by HIV.
In severely affected communities these span the entire range:
- protecting children from infection
- treating those who are infected
- providing social support to those whose livelihood and development is threatened by HIV
In communities where HIV infection is rare, the priorities of children may not be directly related to HIV, but rather to the social conditions that makes them vulnerable to HIV infection.
With operations in more than sixty countries throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, Plan has developed scores of AIDS projects with young people at their centre.
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