Tuesday, August 07, 2007

"Children Earned between US$0.05 and $0.10 for Providing Sexual Services"

SUDAN: Juba's street children survive at risk of HIV
Via: IRINnews
Photo: IRINnews

"My father was beating me at home - whenever I did a mistake he beat me. He told me that he was sick with malaria and he left to go back to our village," he said. "After that there was nobody to care for me so I came to the market." He had been living on the streets for at least three years.

Begging and scavenging food

Like the other boys he lives with in Konya Konya Market, Mabior survives by begging and scavenging food from local restaurants. He does not go to school and has no access to even the most basic of healthcare facilities.

One of the main dangers faced by homeless boys and girls is the sexual predators. "Sometimes it happens that men come and look for boys for sex; they are looking for boys and girls, but where I stay there are only boys," Mabior said. "It is a mixture: Arabs, southerners, soldiers from all over ... some boys will go straight away for the money, others will resist and refuse, but this means they can get beaten."

He said the children earned between US$0.05 and $0.10 for providing sexual services.

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