In Depth
AIDS
Children and AIDS: The epidemic within the epidemic
Last Updated Nov. 30, 2006
CBC News
Several children with HIV/AIDS attend a class at an orphanage for children with the disease in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Nov. 30, 2005. (Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press)
The missing face of AIDS is a young one.
About 12.2 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have lost one or both parents to AIDS, UNICEF deputy executive director Rima Salah said during the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto.
"This is more than one and a half times the total population of Canada … this describes the magnitude of the problem," she says.
By 2010, more than 15.7 million children will have lost at least one parent due to AIDS, a UNICEF report estimates.
There are about 2.3 million children under 15 living with HIV, the report says. In 2005 alone, an estimated 540,000 children under 15 were newly infected with HIV. Another estimated 380,000 children under 15 died from AIDS-related causes.
"HIV and AIDS are taking a terrible toll on children's lives all over the world," Salah says.
Yet, after more than 25 years of battling AIDS, she says children are largely missing from the global response — despite the many ways the disease can affect the most vulnerable people of all.
Children at risk
AIDS facts and figures
By 2010, more than 15.7 million children will have lost at least one parent due to AIDS, a UNICEF report estimates.
The AIDS epidemic has implications for children that go beyond simply contracting the disease itself. According to the report, it puts children at risk physically, emotionally and economically as well.
While the impact of AIDS on children varies between countries and regions, the report says that children orphaned by AIDS are at higher risk of missing out on school, living in homes with insufficient food and suffering from anxiety.
In some cases, the child is the one responsible for taking care of a parent living with HIV and is forced to put their education on hold to work or stay home. Their psychological well-being is affected, either by witnessing their parents dying of AIDS, or because they are discriminated against because they are associated with someone who has HIV.
The report also shows that in places where the disease is rampant, such as sub-Saharan Africa, caretakers are scarce and children get placed in poorer households. In 2004, those orphaned by AIDS or "vulnerable children" — those living in a household where at least one adult died or was sick in the last year, or lives in a home headed by an individual under 18 — were more likely than other children to not have basic material needs, such as a blanket, shoes and two sets of clothing.
"It affects where they sleep, if they eat," says Ahmad Hussein, Kenya's director of the department of children services. "Some live with their grandmothers, who cannot work. They come to school with an empty stomach. The whole experience affects their perception of things."
The report also shows children orphaned by AIDS are more susceptible to getting the disease itself, especially young women aged 15-24.
Open to abuse
Hussein says their vulnerability also leaves them open to abuse — verbal and sexual — from adults.
"The mere vulnerability of these children affects their capacity to protect themselves from either the consequences of HIV/AIDS, or the risks themselves of exposure to HIV infections," says Kent Hill, assistant administrator of the Bureau for Global Health of the U.S. Agency for International Development. "That's a very vicious cycle."
Hussein says the first step to helping children caught in the epidemic is to make them a priority — something that hasn't been done fully yet.
"Two years ago [at the last AIDS conference], children were not on the agenda," he says. "Even anti-retroviral medicines weren't meant for children, until now."
The report outlines five ways to attack the problem, which governments in sub-Saharan Africa are now addressing.
Prolonging lives
One of them is to help families protect and care for orphans and vulnerable children by prolonging the lives of parents and providing economic, psychosocial and other support. Kenya has introduced a program giving a monthly stipend to extended families taking care of orphans, Hussein says, and it has met with some success.
Another is to mobilize and support community-based responses.
Another is to ensure access for orphans and vulnerable children to essentials like education, health care. One way is to eliminate school fees, as Kenya and Uganda have done, which has increased enrolment, according to the report.
Another way to help is to raise awareness and create a supportive environment for children and families affected by HIV and AIDS. Greater openness about the disease would make it easier to identify children and families who need support, and reduce the stigma that leads to stress and anxiety for the child.
"I think it is time we invested a lot of resources for those infected and those affected," Hussein said.
MENU
- Main page
- Stephen Lewis, Q&A, the granny campaign
- AIDS Vaccine: The search continues
- Timeline
- History of AIDS treatment
- Children and AIDS
- Aboriginals: Canada's most vulnerable population
- Living, fully, with HIV - a Caribbean man's story
- Glossary
- Quiz
- Media
- CBC stories
AIDS 2006: The 16th International AIDS Conference
- Pat Senson's AIDS Conference blog
- AIDS Conference diary
- by Julie Hard
- Governor General Michaëlle Jean's opening speech
Reality Check
- Generic AIDS drugs: What happened to Canada's pledge to Africa?
- by Robert Sheppard
- Women and HIV: The promise of microbicides
- by Robert Sheppard
Viewpoint
- The Face of AIDS
- by Mike Quinn
- A Zambian woman's fight against HIV/AIDS
- by Madelaine Drohan
- A tree marks the life of Normand
- by Martin O'Malley
Interactives
Photo Galleries
Related
RELATED
CBC Archives
Multimedia
External Links
- My life with HIV, a series of photo galleries by patients of Médecins Sans Frontières
- International AIDS Vaccine Initiative
- UNAIDS
- 16th International Aids Conference
- Africa's Orphaned and Vulnerable Generations (UNICEF report)
(Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites - links will open in new window)