The impact of HIV on street children
22 August 2007
The Alliance secretariat recently held a meeting with the Consortium for Street Children (CSC) to explore common ground and focus on the impact of HIV on street children. Street children can be invisible to organisations that support orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV, and the meeting emphasised both the need to make sure that street children are included in such programming and for street children’s organisations to provide targeted information and services focusing on HIV and sexual health.
The meeting focused particularly on the role of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria with a presentation and subsequent discussion about the role of the Country Coordinating Mechanisms in guiding the Global Fund’s work. Country Coordinating Mechanisms provide a key opportunity for organisations supporting street children or advocating for their rights to lobby for the inclusion of street children in Global Fund proposals.
What is the Consortium for Street Children?
The Consortium for Street Children was established in 1993 and is a network of 52 UK-based NGOs – including the Alliance. It works globally through its network of local partners, aiming to improve the quality and stability of projects serving children, and to prevent further generations of children from being forced to live and work on the street.
The Alliance and the Consortium for Street Children have been working closely since 2005, when the Consortium formed an HIV working group, which it co-chairs with the Alliance.
How do we define street children?
There is no set definition of what constitutes a street child; the Consortium aims to describe rather than define them.
The term ‘street children’ can include those living on the street full time, children working on the street, or children who are at risk of living or working on the street. In addition, the circumstances of street children may change at any time. This also makes judging their numbers very difficult.
Street children and HIV
The meeting between the Consortium for Street Children and the Alliance was an opportunity to consider the ways in which HIV impacts on street children, and several key issues arose. Alex Dressler, the Consortium’s director, highlighted the absence of street children from the agenda of international movements to support orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS. As he pointed out, the relatively small numbers of street children means that their needs are often superseded by those of larger groups, such as orphans, or children living in families affected by HIV. While they may not form a large population, street children are one of the most marginalised groups when it comes to accessing HIV-related services and support. Kate Harrison, senior technical advisor for children at the Alliance, pointed out that care for orphans and vulnerable children often evolves from home-based care programmes – which by their very nature are poorly suited to reaching children who live or work on the street.
Studies have shown that street children are more likely to be sexually active at a younger age, and some studies have suggested that HIV prevalence is higher among street children. They are unlikely to use testing and counselling or treatment services, access to which often depends on consent from a parent or guardian and a stable, supportive home life.
Street children are in great need of HIV prevention services, but rarely receive them. When it comes to targeting services, street children cannot be compartmentalised as a single group – what we define as key populations (such as injecting drug users and sex workers/clients) can also include street children who inject drugs and street children in the sex industry.
Such difficulties in classification underline the issues that many street-children-focused NGOs have with providing and targeting information and services about HIV and sexual health issues. Such organisations need technical support to enable them to develop supportive knowledge, skills and attitudes.
