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To amplify the voices of the vulnerable, the marginalized and the excluded. |
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For the first fifteen years after the first cases of AIDS were recorded in Haiti, women involved in commercial sex have shown themselves indifferent towards the repercussions of the epidemic. With time progressing and the spread of the virus causing HIV/AIDS accelerating, prostitutes now feel more and more concerned.
Caution danger!
“I could not believe for a moment that AIDS really exists, up to the day that one of my friends was hit by the scourge of the century,” Katia Juste said, who considers herself a nomad and now lives in Gonaives, the main city of the Department of Artibonite located 171 kilometers North of Port-au-Prince.
Katia, who accepted to talk frankly, is 23 years old. She is already mother of two children without knowledge of the father’s whereabouts. “Already when I was 17, I had affairs with many men simultaneously,” she confided laughing. From one hotel to another, she traveled to all the big cities of Haiti in those years, always looking for the best affairs.
Read more ...From 2 – 12 November 2000, in four localities of the South East of Haiti, the Association for National Solidarity (ASON) organized an awareness and motivation campaign on AIDS. This campaign, which was funded by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), aimed to contribute to the reduction of the rate of infection by HIV and to break the social barriers and discrimination towards seropositive people.
This “crusade” had its first stop on 3 November 2000 at the “Emile Posy” school and on the “Cojurelle” beach of Marigot.
“How to live with AIDS; AIDS, a threat to society; What does the future hold for an HIV-positive person?” were the themes of the debate which took place during five hours between members of ASON and an audience estimated at more than 300 people.
The audience at Marigot, located at 24 kilometers from Jacmel, composed of youth and adults, took the floor many times, and asked questions on the modes of transmitting HIV. Read more ...
“The Haitian Government must apply a policy to guarantee care for AIDS orphans,” Jean Saurel Beaujour declared, Executive Secretary of the Association for National Solidarity (ASON).
He made this statement, in La Vallee, a village in South-East Haiti, immediately after visiting a relative of a girl of 12 years old, who is HIV-positive. Her mother and father have already died of AIDS.
“This little girl is forced to move to Port-au-Prince to live with another grand parent, because she is exposed to the prejudice and negligence of her guardian in La Vallee,” Jean-Julien Raymond said, who is in charge of the Club Cool of Jacmel.
“In Marigot, a village nearby, four children left behind by a father deceased of AIDS, are subject to the numerous prejudices of the community,” Jean-Julien Raymond confided.
“A policy to provide home care to AIDS orphans would be more efficient,” Begerl Chery suggested. He is the Activities Coordinator of ASON. Read more ...