Teenagers convene anti-HIV/AIDS workshop

An Ethiopian living with the HIV/AIDS virus on Thursday helped launch the country’s first-ever teenage forum aimed at tackling the disease. Beniam Tesfaye told of how he had been rejected by his family and forced to leave home after learning he was HIV-positive. He spoke out as Ethiopian teenagers also revealed the devastating impact the virus was having on their lives. "No-one should have to suffer this. I hate AIDS, but people have to learn about it. I wish more people who have the virus would speak out and let the world know about it," Beniam, now 31 years old, who discovered he had the virus over four years ago, said in the course of describing how children used to taunt him. The one-day forum was sponsored by the UN Children’s Fund and organised and hosted by teenagers. It was a follow-up to the first-ever UN Special Session in New York devoted entirely to children and the fears they face. Haimanot Sintayehu, an AIDS orphan aged 15, told how she was forced to leave school after being taunted by children who knew that her parents had died from the virus. She also had to undergo three distressing HIV/AIDS tests to ascertain that she was free of the disease. In a moving address, she said she had suffered enough by losing her parents, and should not have had to suffer persecution because they had died of AIDS. Dr Bulti Gutema, head of the child, youth and family welfare department of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, warned of the dangers HIV/AIDS posed to young people in Ethiopia. "The major social evil facing young people at present is the enormous HIV/AIDS infection rate among youth," he told the teenagers at the UN Conference Centre in the capital, Addis Ababa. He said it was vital to include young people in the fight against HIV/AIDS, as they were the future dynamo of the economy. Some 3.5 million people are living with the virus in the country, and a million children have been orphaned. About 50 teenagers from 15 schools took part in the forum, which is expected to become a regular event. They aim to draw up a 10-point recommendation and action plan to be used in the fight against the virus. "We wanted to give young people a venue where they can discuss the problems that they face among themselves and to come up with solutions to these problems," one of the organisers, Eleni Muluneh, 17, told IRIN. Ibrahim Jabr, the head of UNICEF in Ethiopia, said young people were playing a vital role in helping to motivate their peers to avoid risky behaviour.