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Infected - for no fault of theirs
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Children are God's gift be it the adorable one in a posh bungalow or the one born on the pavement
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A counselling session for pregnant women in progress.
"Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children born in or out of wedlock shall enjoy the same social protection." - Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
When Nkosi Johnson died on June 1st 2001, the world cried and prayed for him. Johnson, aged 12, was an orphan as his parents had died of AIDS and he himself was a sufferer of this pandemic. He was South Africa's AIDS mascot and a bubbly activist till he breathed his last. It is a known fact that some sub-Saharan countries are facing the threat of virtual extinction due to this epidemic.
Children are the worst affected as far as AIDS is concerned. Every minute a child is either dying of the HIV or being rendered an orphan. There are around 2.7 million children with the infection globally and so far AIDS has claimed the lives of 0.58 million children.
In India the rate of prevalence of HIV among children is increasing with every passing day, there are hundreds of Johnsons roaming the streets and dark alleys. The spread is mainly through sexual abuse of children, especially the street children who are vulnerable to such acts and form one of the high-risk groups. The other route is through the mother-to-child transmission, which contributes maximum to the number.
Visakhapatnam, the `City of Destiny', is home to 4,180 street children in the 7 to 18 age group and it is estimated that 30 percent of them are infected with STD and a few are confirmed HIV positive cases with many more undiscovered.
Stark poverty, loss of both parents at an early age, parental abuse and some social problems are pushing these children on to the street. Once they are out they fall a prey to gangs and bad elements.
That was what happened to Sarada, a 12 year old girl who was living with her mother in a slum area. After the death of the mother, a known family took the child along with them on the pretext of taking care of her. Soon she found to be in captivity with two other young girls in a house near a well-known market area.
After a couple of days stay, she was forced to have sex with a middle aged man and had many more such encounters before she could escape after a couple of months with the help of another girl and took shelter in another house. The people of that house reported the incident to the authorities and she was sent to one of the shelter homes run by an NGO.
It is understood from her disclosure that she has contracted STD and HIV from her very first encounter itself as the man was told by a quack that an intercourse with a virgin would cure his ailment!
Such cases of exploitation of children are rampant in the railway station and bus stops where the older children lure the younger ones into homosexuality. It happened to Raghu a few days ago when he was pushed by a vendor to a secluded compartment near the dead-end of the station and sexually abused. The child was also mercilessly beaten up for resistance. He is at present staying in a shelter home and trying to recover from the trauma. Its employees suspect that he could be infected with STD.
"Such incidents are on the rise, and we keep getting such cases on a regular basis. But after a brief counselling and medical treatment the children again disappear," says Basaveswara Rao, centre coordinator of Childline, which is the nodal agency of all shelter homes.
Another major source of spread among children in India is from the infected mother. It is estimated that there are 27 million pregnancies in a year with 0.3 per cent infection rate among mothers, and 0.1 million infants are estimated to be born with the virus every year.
This phase is most crucial and dangerous, as in most of the case the mother is unaware that she is home to the dreaded virus and unconsciously passes it on to her infant. The infected parents not only leave behind their legacy of infection but many orphans to fight the travails of this evil world on their own.
Seven year-old Radha is a living example. In a couple of years she is going to be an orphan. Her father who is a truck driver is a carrier of this virus and he has infected her mother. A couple of years ago her mother gave birth to another younger sister with whom she had dreamt to go to school and play together. But unfortunately the younger one was born with the virus and had died a few days back, even before she could learn to toddle. Today Radha is all alone, lost in her own sad world awaiting the death of her sick parents.
The mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) in developing countries is around 25 to 45 per cent compared to industrialised countries where it is around 15 to 25 per cent. The possible flow of infection is categorised into three stages: during pregnancy 19 percent, during labour and delivery 40 per cent and by breast feeding 41 per cent.
"Scientists all over the world worked at a feverish pace to find an anti-retroviral drug (ARV) to contain the infection from MTCT, and in 1999 they had come out with a drug called `Nevirapine' which is to be administered to both mother and child at the time of delivery. It is considered quite successful worldwide if given in time," says P.S.K.P. Raju of FXB India. FXB, an international NGO, in concert with the State Government, has set up two centres in Visakhapatnam to conduct free voluntary testing and counselling service and to provide the ARV drug to the affected free of cost. The centres are located at the KGH and Victoria Government hospital (Gosha Hospital).
Children are God's gift be it the adorable one in a posh bungalow or the one born on the pavement. They are innocent, immature and they need to be cared. They are the State's responsibility, for they are going to be the future citizens.
The responsibility cannot be shed by simply adorning a white or yellow dress with the Tricolour wrapped around the neck and screaming in the public address system with claims of floating numerous NGOs.
At the end of the day the same tribe rush to the `Rajdhani' with their begging bowl queuing outside embassies and international funding offices for their share of green notes with dressed up figures tucked in their armpit. Even if a meagre portion of the fund they get trickles down to the cause then the poor homeless children would be immensely benefited. After all, they are our children and they cannot be deprived of their fundamental rights.
This reminds one of Nkosi Johnson's emotional address to the gathering at the Durban summit where he quoted: "I want people to understand AIDS, I want them to be careful and respect AIDS - you can't get AIDS by touching, by hugging, by kissing or holding the hand of someone who is infected. Take care of us and accept us; we are all human beings. We are normal. We have hands. We have feet. We can walk, we can talk, we have needs the same as everybody. Don't be afraid of us. We are all the same."
They certainly deserve a better deal.(The names have been camouflaged to conceal their identity)
(Next week: the focus the will be on truckers and slum dwellers)
SUMIT BHATTACHARJEE
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