HEALTH-COTE D'IVOIRE:
Displaced Persons At Risk of HIV/AIDS
Marie Chantal Obinde
ABIDJAN, Feb 18 (IPS) - ''Prostitution, resulting from extreme poverty, is increasing the risk of HIV/AIDS infection among displaced persons in Cote d'Ivoire,'' according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
In five months of political crisis, nearly a million people have been displaced in Cote d'Ivoire, 80 percent of whom are women and children.
UNICEF says ''keeping children, especially girls, in school is not only necessary for their education and development but is also one of the best strategies to reduce their vulnerability to violence, sexual exploitation and HIV/AIDS''.
Statistics from the National Programme Against AIDS prior to the Sep 19, 2002 rebellion show that Cote d'Ivoire's HIV/AIDS infection rate was between 8 and 12 percent. According to 1998-1999 statistics, 1.5 million people were living with HIV/AIDS, which orphaned 600,000 children in this West African country of 16 million.
Alice Kipre, coordinator for Africa AID and Assistance, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), which offers information and awareness training on HIV/AIDS, believes the situation would worsen, as a result of poor living conditions and abuse. At displaced centres, a number of women have complained of sexual abuse as they crossed rebel zones trying to reach areas under government control.
Lucie L., who requested her surname not to be published, says she may never recover from an incidence of rape she was subjected to. ''I had been stuck in Bouake (rebel stronghold in the north) since September 19, 2002,'' she says.
''I was unable to find a way to escape the first time I tried to flee. The second time I was successful, but I risked my own skin to do so. The child-soldiers, who intercepted us at the southern exit to the city, refused to let us pass because we couldn't pay them. Two of them grabbed me and two other girls and raped us. Now I'm scared. I've been advised to take an AIDS test, which makes me even more frightened,'' she says.
In another account published in an Abidjan newspaper, an anonymous young female student charged that she had been detained and raped by 50 rebel soldiers. Whether the story is true or false is not clear, but it has caused a huge stir.
Nor is the situation particularly rosy in areas under government control. In Yamoussoukro, central Cote d'Ivoire, where the government forces' operational command is located, prostitution is on the rise. Mercenaries, hired by the government, and loyalist soldiers enjoy the services of sex workers. At the bus station and in small hotels around town, Alice K. makes no effort to hide her satisfaction. ''The war also has its advantages. Business is good. The foreign soldiers don't bargain much. They're fair game, with or without condoms,'' she reveals.
Concurring, hotelier Alfred Kouadio says he has never seen so much traffic in Yamoussoukro. Aid workers, assisting the displaced, fear that the rate of HIV infection will go up. In war zones, survivors try to stay alive through any means necessary, including the most humiliating.
The war, which has split the country into two - with the north under rebel control and the south in government hand - has prevented the National Programme Against AIDS from monitoring and collecting up-to-date figures on infection rates. Dr. Malick Sangare, who works for the programme, believes the disease is now spreading faster than before.
The civil war in Cote d'Ivoire has meant that the urgency in the fight against HIV/AIDS has receded well into the background. For example, First Lady Simone Gbagbo, a ''champion in the fight against HIV/AIDS'', who has not made a major public statement about the pandemic since mid-December, said, in a three-minute television programme aired last week, that ''The war that has imposed itself on us must not blind us in the fight against HIV/AIDS.''
''At the beginning of the Ivorian crisis, many displaced persons flooded government controlled areas. Such destitute people are vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. The film is aimed especially at them and encourages them to protect themselves against this scourge,'' explains an official at 'Our Nation', a non-governmental organisation, which produced the TV programme.
''In a situation like this, the fight against HIV/AIDS must be stepped up for vulnerable populations like the displaced. Their lack of resources and especially their instability could, if we're not careful, lead to an increase in the rate of infection throughout the country,'' the official warns.
The police say the number of sex workers has increased in spite of the dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed by the authorities. But they could not provide figures to back up their claim.
To reduce the spread of the disease, 'Our Nation' has called for measures to be put in place to help people living with HIV/AIDS. Boua Bi, president of the Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS, laments that only the wealthy can now afford anti-retroviral drugs, which slow down the disease. (END/2003)
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