Mobile clinic to treat street children with STDs

Street children and child sex workers in Zambia's capital Lusaka will soon become familiar with a kerb crawler of a different kind - a mobile clinic equipped especially to treat children for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Merab Keremire, director of MAPODE (Movement of Community Action for the Prevention and Protection of Young People Against Poverty, Destitution, Diseases and Exploitation), said while her organisation was doing outreach work on the pavements of the Zambian city, they realised that there was a need for a facility dedicated to treating children with STDs. The boys and girls - between the ages of 8 and 15 - were usually taken to nearby medical centres for treatment but they didn't always have adequate facilities or staff, she explained. But now, with the help of a donation from British-based Streetchild Africa, MAPODE will cruise the city streets at night in a mobile clinic staffed by a dedicated nurse and a doctor on call, with free medication from local hospitals and clinic. The project would seek out both boys and girls who need treatment. The focus, however, would primarily be on girls who, Keremire feels, are more vulnerable. "Females are exploited and are treated as sex objects. In the street there are taxi drivers, conductors, security guards, mad guys, and a small little girl loitering gets abused a lot," she told IRIN. "We have a home for about 23 boys at the moment but girls don't have that option. They get raped and their bodies get violated. The street boys live in a group and they survive by forming a gang to protect themselves," she said. "The boys don't get raped but there is a lot of 'compassionate sex' among themselves and they need treatment for STDs. They get healed unless they have HIV/AIDS. But the little girls have to deal with pregnancies, abortions, problems with their wombs - they are in a bad state." Keremire said a nurse was about to arrive in the country from abroad to start the project. The clinic would also travel at night as the groups of sleeping children were easier to find then. "We find them sleeping in the doorways at midnight and we ask them how they are and they tell us who needs help," she said. Keremire said the next step was to get the children off the street. They had arrived through a combination of setbacks - a death in the family, a father unable to cope alone with children, no money. "The bottom line is that there aren't sufficient child protection structures for them." Meanwhile, MAPODE hopes to buy a house to set up a permanent clinic and a skills training centre for girls. Other current projects include a computer school to equip children with modern skills.