from Bloomberg
By Emma O'Brien
Children in Pacific island countries are at increased risk of sexual abuse because of poverty, corruption and a weak judicial system, the United Nations said in a report.
``Too often in the Pacific, perpetrators go unpunished due to weak law enforcement, inadequate resources to the police and judiciary and corruption,'' said the report on childhood sexual abuse in Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.
The report highlighted a case in which a man in the Solomon Islands offered his child to fishermen for sex in exchange for fish to sell. Similar cases were recounted by children in Kiribati, the UN said.
Attitudes to child sexual abuse in the region need to be changed through education and laws must be strengthened to punish perpetrators, the UN said.
The World Health Organization estimates more than 200 million children are sexually abused worldwide every year. The report was compiled by the UN's commission for Asia and the Pacific, its children's fund UNICEF and the organization ECPAT International, which stands ``End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes.''
In Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby General Hospital sees one to two cases of child rape every day, said the report. Children as young as one have been diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases in the Solomon Islands.
Taboo Subject
In Fiji, more than 150 cases of child sexual abuse were reported to the country's Women's Crisis Centre between 1993 and 2001, the study said. The number is low and probably doesn't accurately reflect the scale of the problem because the issue is taboo in the region, the report added. None of the countries surveyed record national rates of child sexual abuse.
The low status of women and children and high poverty levels also make youngsters more vulnerable, the report said.
Of Pacific youth aged between 15 and 24, 22.3 percent said they had sex for money or gifts in the past year, the report said, citing HIV/Aids surveys conducted in the countries.
The report relied on information from government agencies, non government organizations and interviews with children and their families.
To contact the reporter on this story: Emma O'Brien in Wellington at eobrien6@bloomberg.net
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Combating HIV/AIDS in Bangladesh
Mohammad Khairul Alam
Executive Director
Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
24/3 M. C. Roy Lane
Dhaka-1211, Bangladesh
rainbowngo@gmail.com
www.newsletter.com.bd
Tell: 880-2-8628908
Mobile: 01711344997
HIV/AIDS epidemic is described as the worst difficulty in the history of health. In fact, human beings have been having great problems since time immemorial but there had never been the worst complexity like AIDS. HIV/AIDS is similar to war but it is worse than war in that when armies fight, it is mostly the men who are killed but HIV/AIDS kills women and children. HIV/AIDS kills people in the prime of their life. HIV/AIDS has no existing cure but there are several ways it can effectively be controlled. After all, common adage has it that prevention is better than cure. If an individual has enough prevention mechanism, there is optimism that the virus can be triumphed upon by the mankind.
Bangladesh is a Muslim countries, Sex is every where not permitted except 15 brothels in Bangladesh, Female Commercial Sex Workers (CSWs) in Bangladesh are generally adolescent and they are more vulnerable to infection as their low status makes them less able to negotiate the use of HIV/AIDS or Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs/STI) prevention methods e.g. condoms, also the young age makes them more biologically vulnerable. The destiny of CSWs, in relation to their vulnerability to HIV infection, depends mostly upon safe sex behaviors, with the use of condoms.
The problem of Female Commercial Sex Workers (CSWs) in Bangladesh exists for more than two decade. There are larger numbers of CSWs is operating all over the country, Bangladesh, significantly increases the risk of bridging the high risk groups and moving infection into the general population. Men who frequently visit commercial sex areas and have sex with CSWs and also with their monogamous wives, function as a bridging population and significantly aid the confluence of HIV/STDs into the innocent healthy population.
In generally Bangladesh is a high prevalence country of sexually transmitted diseases, particularly among commercial sex workers. It is estimated about 40% CSWs infected in several STDs/STI. Illicit sex is often considered as the highest risk segment of the population whereby one could get HIV or STD due to the high-risk sex activity itself and the often-additional injurious high-risk behaviors practiced by sex workers e.g. injection drug use (IDU). CSWs are the principal transmitters of HIV in many countries.
Certainly, adolescent girls prostitution is booming in Bangladesh. Adolescent girls engage or are forced into prostitution for trafficking or socio-economic reasons. Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation carried out a recent field investigation, the research confirmed that adolescent girls’ prostitution is widespread in Bangladesh, although hidden at first sight from foreigners, especially in Dhaka city. Adolescent girls involved in prostitution are to be found in residence homes converted into brothels or in hotels. The majority are aged 15-18.
Injecting drug use (IDU) has been the main route of HIV transmission in Bangladesh. While the transmission through sexual contact is still widely considered a major factor worldwide, but transmission through injection drug use (IDU) is also increasing at an alarming rate. Here the needles through IDU become one of the main factors of transmission. The drug user use drugs illegally. As a result, they do not have access to enough and clean needles. They share the same needles. This passes the virus in several ways: The first way is that the virus gets transmitted through the same needles they share. The second one is that they are influenced by drugs to become unconscious of using safe sex. The third one is the fact that this category of people is said to be having sex frequently and more carelessly with any individual than any other group.
HIV/AIDS would turn into an epidemic in Bangladesh if drug users do not stop sharing needles. A 2002-2003 CARE study found that nearly 40% of Bangladesh drug users use dirty needles; 4% of those were HIV-positive, a figure more than double the 1.7% infection rate reported among drug users in a 2001 study.
In some regions of Sub-Sahara, the impact of HIV/AIDS epidemic, including its social and economic impact, has been far-reaching. People have become impoverished, agricultural and industrial productivity diminished, employment system rampant, education system eroded and health care system and other care providers overburdened.
Reference: CARE, World Bank, Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
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