Browsing by Author "Negash, Kidist"

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    Survival Strategies of Street Children and High Risk Behaviors Towards HIV/Aids In Adama Town
    (Addis Abeba Universty, 2007-07) Negash, Kidist; H/Mariam, Damen (PhD)
    Background- One of the common features in which the problems of children under difficult circumstances manifest is the problem of “streetism”. There are an estimated 100 million street children worldwide, 150,000 in Ethiopia and 1,326 in Adama. Objective- To assess survival strategies of street children and their exposure to HIV/AIDS related risk factors in Adama town. Methods- A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted in Adama town. Both qualitative and quantitative study methods were used and interview using structured questionnaire and four FGDs were used to collect data. The study subjects for the quantitative study were selected by simple random sampling method after registering the street children. FGD participants were selected by using snowball technique. Result- A total of 998 street children aged above seven and less than eighteen completed years were registered and 441 have participated in the study. 77.1% of the respondents were males. Street children are engaged in different activities like petty trade, begging, theft, daily labor and commercial sex work to earn money. 86.5% of the study participants earn less than 10 ETH birr per day and the mean average daily income of study subjects is 1.19 ETH birr. Street children have admitted that they use alcohol and other substances like chat, cigarette, glue, benzene, shisha, hashish, atsefaris (cannabis), ganija, mixture of local leaves like "shewishewe" and "tikure", orange rind, and tea. 32.2% of the respondents are sexually active. 53.3% had their first sexual experience between the age of 10 and 14. 89.5% of respondents have heard of HIV/AIDS and 30.7% of the respondents consider themselves as having risk of being infected with HIV. 3.5% of respondents have had sexually transmitted diseases in their past history. It was also identified that there are males who are having sex with males and also street boys make sex with a single girl being in-group. vi Conclusion- The majorities of street children are living by their own being engaged in different activities. Because of luck of adult supervision and harsh environmental condition risky and unhealthy practices like substance use, early sex, violence and having multiple sexual partners are common. More should be done on child rights at all levels to protect children from joining streets and those who are on the street should be supported financially to decrease their vulnerability. Legislative actions should also be taken on drug traffickers.