Report on the Global HIV/AIDS epidemic

Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic - June 2000

Before AIDS, about 2% of all children in developing countries were orphans. By
1997, the proportion of children with one or both parents dead had skyrocketed to
7% in many African countries and in some cases reached an astounding 11%.
7 In African countries that have had long, severe epidemics, AIDS is generating
A orphans so quickly that family structures can no longer cope. Traditional safety nets
are unravelling as more young adults die of this disease. Families and communities
can barely fend for themselves, let alone take care of orphans. Typically, half of all
people with HIV become infected before they turn 25, acquiring AIDS and dying by
the time they turn 35, leaving behind a generation of children to be raised by their
grandparents or left on their own in child-headed households.
Wherever they turn, children who have lost a mother or both parents to AIDS face
a future even more difficult than that of other orphans. According to a report pub7 lished jointly in 1999 by UNICEF and the UNAIDS Secretariat, AIDS orphans are at
greater risk of malnutrition, illness, abuse and sexual exploitation than children
orphaned by other causes. They must grapple with the stigma and discrimination so
often associated with AIDS, which can even deprive them of basic social services
and education.
Although the crisis is enormous and its impact devastating, countries and communities across Africa are rallying to react to the damage and to counter some of its worst
6impacts. In Malawi, the Government decided early on to support community-based
7,7 programmes and has had a National Orphan Care Task Force since 1991. Across the
country, community-based organizations are setting up child-care centres to
improve the care of children and increase their learning opportunities. In Zambia,
9which has the second largest proportion of AIDS orphans in the world after Uganda,
nongovernmental organizations are working hard to fill gaps by providing food, clothing and school fees to orphans and their families. In Zimbabwe, where 7% of all children under 15 are orphaned by AIDS, a National Policy on the Care and Protection
of Orphans has been developed, which advocates that orphans should be placed in
institutions only as a last resort and be cared for by the community whenever possible. Uganda Women's Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO) was started in 1986 by Janet
Museveni, wife of President Yoweri Museveni, in the aftermath of the country's
lengthy civil war, functioning as a relief agency to assist orphans in resettlement
camps and return them to their extended families. As the country became increasingly affected by the AIDS epidemic, UWESO shifted its emphasis to support for
S AIDS orphans; the organization, with its 35 branches countrywide, helps fund education and training for the children and runs a micro-finance scheme to help the
caretakers - typically, female relatives of the children - to start up small businesses
and trading activities...-..:

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