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HIV/AIDS

New report on HIV and AIDS

© Klaus Holsting

The HIV and AIDS situation is especially serious in Africa. The number of orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa would be declining were it not for HIV/AIDS. Instead by 2010 the number of double orphans – children having lost both parents - in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to rise to 8 million. More than 1½ times the whole Danish population.

Children and youth are proportionally the most affected by the AIDS epidemic. Both because more than half of all new infections occur among youth and children and because many children and young people are affected by the epidemic by being orphaned or by having to care for sick parents when they are only children needing care themselves. They do not only lose parents and family. They lose their childhood.

• Every minute of every day, a child under the age of 15 becomes infected with HIV.

Children under 15 account for one in six of AIDS-related deaths worldwide and one in seven new HIV infections. Around the world, the risk for girls and women of contracting HIV is higher – especially in Sub-Saharan Africa - and is compounded by their generally low economic and social status and by pervasive gender discrimination.

Almost 90 per cent of all new HIV infections occur among children in Africa. In the worst-affected countries, AIDS is now the biggest single cause of death among children under 5, and is threatening to reverse years of hard-won progress in reducing child mortality. The crisis is a vicious circle of vulnerability: Orphans and vulnerable children have a much higher risk of being infected, and the infected young parents risk leaving their own children orphaned. The tragedy is that the disease is often passed on to the children before the parents pass away.

The overwhelming majority of children under 15 who are HIV-positive were infected through their mothers. Again these statistics describe a vicious circle of vulnerability. Less than 10 per cent of pregnant women are offered services to stop the spread of HIV to their babies. This harsh reality is the reason for DCA to increase its focus on children and youth – for instance through strengthening project and advocacy interventions to improve children’s conditions.

Massive violations of basic human rights

The complex and interrelated problems for orphans and other vulnerable children include:

• Withdrawal from school due to economic pressure and responsibilities of caring for the sick
• Psychosocial distress due to the illness and death of the parents
• Loss of inheritance – orphans are often deprived of property that is rightfully theirs
• Increased abuse and risk of HIV infection
• Limited access to Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) leading to further spread of HIV
• Child labour
• Stigma and discrimination – Children orphaned by AIDS are more likely to be rejected by extended family members than those orphaned due to other causes than AIDS
• Limited care and support
• Poverty leading young women and children into transactional sex.

In Africa, studies show that only half of the children, who have lost both their parents go to school. If the children have just one of their parents almost ¾ of them go to school. In Zambia 2/3 of the children engaged in commercial sex are orphans.

In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, more than 3/4 of child domestic workers are orphans. The orphans and vulnerable children experience massive violations of their basic human rights.

The crisis is a vicious circle of vulnerability – both for the children and for their families.