Saturday, 19 August 2006 (Page 3)
The Ghana Aids Commission (GAC) says 603 children below the age of four last year tested HIV positive in spite of the Free Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) services introduced by the commission in 2003.The Commission’s Research Coordinator, Atuahene Kyeremeh, who made this known at a forum yesterday, attributed the widespread incidence of PMTCT to the failure of many pregnant mothers to access the service.
PMTCT is a service for counseling and testing for the HIV status of present women at ante-natal clinics to protect the unborn child against contracting the virus.
Speaking at a workshop to disseminate research findings on sexual exploitation of children in tourism and its implication for the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Ghana, he said 227 other children aged between five and nine were also reported of being HIV positive.
"We have low uptake of the PMTCT service and this is worrying," he stated.
Mr.Kyeremeh said, about 30 to 40 per cent of children born to HIV positive mothers get infected, and therefore called for the strengthening of the PMTCT services in Ghana.
He said that last year, 603 children below four years were reported of being HIV positive while 227 within the age group of five to nine were also reported of being HIV positive.
He said HIV/AIDS impact on children is complex and multifaceted, adding that it has created orphans globally, and "in Ghana, it would have created about 291,000 orphans by 2015".
He explained that knowing the HIV status of the pregnant mothers would help to put them on anti retroviral treatment which would protect the child from contracting the virus.
Mr.Kyeremeh said if nothing is done and more and more children get the virus, the low HIV/AIDS prevalent rate in the country would go up. He therefore appealed to all to help in the campaign against the disease.
The research was conducted by the Ghana NGO Coalition on the Rights of the Child to assess the prevalence, magnitude and consequences of child sex tourism with focus on boys at La and Osu, in Accra.
It aimed at highlighting the fact that boys are also exploited sexually by tourists.
Presenting the findings, a research coordinator of the coalition, Edmund Acquaye, said in their attempt to sexually abuse children tourists adopt various strategies including money inducement and promises to take the prospective victim abroad.
He said: "The study revealed that anal sex among the boys was rampant. Most of the respondents pointed this out and they stressed on the fact that in recent times one gets a lot of money in anal sex".
Mr.Acquaye indicated that some of these boys agree to have sex with their partners without a condom because according to them, it attracts a higher fee, although 90 per cent of respondents said they have heard of HIV/AIDS.
He observed that the high promotion of tourism would lead to an increase in sexual exploitation, hence he stressed the need to look at the badside of tourism.
He said a tourist admitted the fact he was engage in homosexuality and that his clients mostly boys had no age limit adding "his main aim of traveling to Ghana was to have fun and carry on these sexual exploitative activities"
He called for a well structured and systematic community based sensitization on sexual exploitation of children.
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