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Early Sexual Activity Raises HIV Risk for Trinidad and Tobago Girls
– Reported, May 24, 2013
“If something is not done about mother-to-child transmission, we run the risk of realizing the international norm of 30 percent of the babies born to HIV-positive mothers contracting the virus,” says the hospital medical director of Tobago, Dr. Maria Dillon-Remy. That would severely affect the 750 babies born in Tobago every year and eventually the 50,000 population of the island, Dr. Dillon-Remy observed.
Dr. Violet Duke of the Ministry of Health in Trinidad says the government has developed a policy that includes voluntary screening for pregnant women. The next stage is to provide treatment for mothers who develop AIDS after having their babies, “otherwise we will have a generation of orphans,” notes Duke. The third stage of the policy would be to begin making combination HIV drug therapy available to persons infected with AIDS.
Under the new policy, a pilot study began in August 1999 with voluntary screening of women for HIV. With the assistance of the Medical Research Foundation of Trinidad and Tobago, six women were treated during pregnancy and, along with their babies, they also received treatment during delivery with AZT. Five other babies whose mothers had not received the drug during pregnancy received AZT treatment. Only one of the 11 babies among those women who were treated has developed the virus.
Given the study results, “We hope to soon be able to offer universal screening to all mothers,” says Dr. Dillon-Remy, noting that the incentive given to women with HIV that their babies can be spared the virus “has proven to be the most important reason why mothers are taking the test.”
Young people have their own ideas about the reasons for early sexual activity among their peers.
Adana Clarke, 18, says one reason that young people, especially girls, assume high-risk behavior at an early age has to do with the failure of parents to speak with their children about sex, postponing the issue until the young people are all but out of their teenage years.
Referring specifically to girls, she adds that “a lot of young people are not given love and affection in their homes, and when they get out onto the streets and the fellas tell them ‘I love you,’ they feel wanted. And because they have low self-esteem, they are forced into sexual behavior at an early age.”
Charles Smith, just out of high school, says parents employ a double standard that is also contributing to the spread of the virus in Tobago. He notes that while parents caution their girls about “appropriate behavior,” they leave their boys “to do as they wish.”
Policy recommendations coming out of a workshop on the Sexual Health Needs of Youth in Tobago include the establishment of youth empowerment centers where young people can go for lifestyle counseling and adolescent and health services without the stigma of visiting an AIDS clinic for testing.
One policy approach recommended is the reorientation of health services in order to create youth-friendly, youth-specific approaches to sexual and reproductive health. The young people fear for confidentiality in a small society.
One desire of the youths is for the government and the Tobago House of Assembly, the body responsible for the administration of the local affairs of Tobago, to adopt a policy of having an official youth representative in the Assembly to look after the interests of young people.
CREDITS.
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