Survival Strategies of Street Children and High Risk Behaviors Towards HIV/Aids In Adama Town
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Date
2007-07
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Addis Abeba Universty
Abstract
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.
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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.
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Keywords
Survival Strategies of Street Children