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Two major publications on AIDS Orphans launched
Reposted courtesy of INTAIDS 2002
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AFXB (Association Francois-Xavier Bagnoud)has laucnhed two major publications on the AIDS orphan pandemic. There can be no doubt that the total number of children left orphaned by the HIV/AIDS pandemic has already reached immense proportions and is continuing to grow at an alarming rate. In spite of this, the issues involved (which are complex, diverse, and must be fully understood if appropriate support is to be provided) remain little more than a footnote pasted onto wider accounts of the socio-economic impact of the disease.
This belies the fact that the numbers of children involved in this crisis have reached such a dramatic figure that AIDS orphaning can be described, without any level of over-reaction, as a pandemic in itself. Because the impact of orphaning not only affects children who are HIV-positive themselves, the orphan pandemic may exceed in quantity the number of people actually afflicted by the disease.
Human society is already counting the cost of failing to provide a safe and just environment for many of our children to live in: lack of education, or a stable family background, is often blamed for many of society?’s ills; child soldiers serve to increase instability in a world that lives in fear of war and international terrorism; malnutrition and restricted child development undermine the capabilities of the poor to lift themselves out of poverty - and so on.
All of these are among the many problems that the AIDS-orphaning pandemic presents to us.
1. ORPHANS ALERT 2 - Children of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic: The Challenge for India. By Neil Monk on behalf of AFXB:
Two years after the launch of ORPHANS ALERT 1 - International Perspectives on Children left behind by HIV/AIDS - at the latest International AIDS Conference in Durban, AFXB now launches a second study on the situation in India. India currently faces a rapidly increasing HIV/AIDS pandemic that could devastate communities, as well as the entire national economy, in the same way that it has done across sub-Saharan Africa, if not brought under control.
In some ways India is at an advantage over many other countries. East and central Africa had already suffered the impact of a disease known as "slim" before HIV was identified, and "slim" disease became known across the world as AIDS. By contrast, HIV/AIDS-focused programmes are already up and running in India, raising awareness and providing support for affected people.
However, the professionals and volunteers engaged in the war against HIV/AIDS face many challenges: working in a country with high levels of migratory work practice, low levels of literacy, and with many at risk people living in remote rural locations. There are already 3.7 million people in India living with HIV/AIDS, which means that even if prevention programmes surpass the most optimistic expectations, India is already guaranteed that many of its children will be left without parents due to the scourge of the pandemic.
Free download on AFXB website at
http://www.afxb.org/explore/news/aids2002.html
2. Enumerating Children Orphaned by HIV/AIDS: Counting a Human Cost - a study paper on the number of AIDS orphans by 2010, by Neil Monk.
Whereas offical estimates are between 26.4 million and 44 million AIDS orphans by 2010, AFXB projects the breathtaking figure of 100 million AIDS-affected children. Based on his scientific expertise, on his own research in Uganda and India and on the experience with the AFXB programs worldwide, Neil Monk identifies three groups of children that are excluded from the common enumeration procedures:
1. Paternal orphans - despite the fact that this is the most numerous group
2. Age group of 15-18 - despite the fact that in AIDS-impacted countries this additional population often exacerbates the dependency on guardians and support
3. India, Somalia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia despite the fact that the conditions for epidemiological spread are very comparable to South Africa
Free download on AFXB Web site at
http://www.afxb.org/explore/news/aids2002.html
Copyright INTAIDS 2002
Email: [email protected]
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