BENIN: Refugees from Togo sensitised to AIDS

cotonou, 2 October 2006 (PlusNews) - Règle d'or, a local nongovernmental organisation (NGO) in Benin, is taking awareness messages to thousands of Togolese nationals who fled their country when the presidential elections erupted in violence last year.

Some of the 25,000 exiles have returned to Togo, but the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated earlier this year that more than 19,000 were afraid to leave, with most staying in the capital, Cotonou.

Rodrigue Anani, a peer educator at Règle d'or, said the poor living conditions and limited resources in refugee camps might encourage commercial sex and other types of risky behaviour.

Members of the NGO wearing white T-shirts with slogans such as "AIDS won't affect me. And you, brother?" have visited UNHCR camps to distribute materials on HIV prevention, treatment and care. "We are sensitising the travellers because AIDS has no frontier," Anani told PlusNews.

Bertin Danvidé, a UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) sociologist working with under aged refugees at Hillacondji, one of the camps, welcomed the campaign.

"Some of the children we are caring for are girls ... they told us that they had had unprotected sex with men for money," he said.

Although 202 minors have since been reunited with their families, of whom 153 chose to return to Togo, the remaining refugees refuse to leave Benin, despite pledges of help and a safe return by the new government of President Faure Gnassingbe.

Règle d'or is exploring ways of expanding and making their HIV prevention interventions more "continuous and permanent".

Theme (s): Care/Treatment - PlusNews,

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]