The teens show up shortly after school lets out, climbing the stairs of a nondescript office building in this bustling capital city's downtown district. Some come for the social scene, some for the games, some just to hang out. I came to learn about sexual reproduction and how to protect myself. It's something that parents often don't want to talk about. The following statistics paint a dire portrait of Haiti's situation.
Regional comparisons refer to the Caribbean and Latin America.
In an impoverished nation with the highest rate of AIDS outside of Africa, the frank talk could help save a generation of young Haitians from early death or lives trapped in a cycle of teen motherhood and grinding poverty. The message is supplied by the Foundation for Reproductive Health and Family Education, a group started in the late 1980s by Dr. Adeline Verly, a Haitian physician. There's a vicious cycle of children having children, then going into prostitution because they are ostracized by their families. Not surprisingly, Haiti leads the way with more than 200,000 victims and an alarming infection rate of 5 percent among the sexually active segment of its 7.8 million population. The Haitian doctors will likely be at the heart of the effort in their country.