UNITED NATIONS ASKS FOR URGENT ACTION FOR ZAMBIA'S KIDS

AIDS orphans: facing Africa's 'silent crisis'

By Michael Fleshman

To the tragedy of the 17 million people who have lost their lives to AIDS in Africa, add the 12 million orphaned children left behind. Traumatized by the death of parents, stigmatized through association with the disease and often thrown into desperate poverty by the loss of bread-winners, this growing army of orphans -- defined as children who have lost one or both parents -- is straining the traditional extended family and overwhelming national health and education systems in the most severely affected countries. The problem is particularly severe in Zambia, where, according to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the number of orphans topped 1.2 million in 2000 -- 1 in every 4 Zambian children. Of these an estimated 930,000 have lost at least one parent to AIDS.

Housing, feeding, educating and nurturing these children is both a moral imperative and essential to Africa's development prospects, Mr. Stephen Lewis, UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, told Africa Recovery. "There has to be an Herculean effort made for these kids so we don't lose them." Otherwise, he cautioned, "you reap the whirlwind.... You have a society where kids haven't been to school and therefore can't fulfill even basic jobs ... a society where a large proportion can have anti-social instincts because their lives will have been so hard. You have a generation of children who will be more vulnerable to exploitation and to disease because they won't have the same sense of self-worth."

The needs of AIDS orphans are as immediate as their next meal and as extended as access to education, guidance and care until the end of their adolescent years. Speaking to leaders of industrialized countries at the July 2001 Group of Eight meeting in Genoa, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed for the resources ‘to care for all whose lives have been devastated by AIDS, particularly the orphans.’ The number of AIDS orphans exceeded 13 million globally, he noted, "and their numbers are growing."

“In Zambia and other countries hit hardest by the pandemic, however, the traditional mechanism for the care of vulnerable children, the extended family, has started to break down under the twin pressures of poverty and disease.”

From Africa Recovery, Vol.15 #3, October 2001, page 1
(Part of Special Feature: Protecting Africa's Children)

More Information on Zambia’s Crises

AIDS, Pregnancy and Poverty Trap Ever More African Girls

Orphaned and impoverished by the deaths of parents, girls here are being propelled into sex at shockingly early ages to support themselves, their siblings and, all too often, their own children.In Zambia's capital, Lusaka, impoverished relatives order some orphaned girls as young as 14 out on the street at night, telling them they must earn their keep, a recent survey found. In Lesotho, a growing number of adolescent girls are forced to work as maids or prostitutes, UNICEF researchers have reported. 

ECPAT: Fifth Report on implementation of the Agenda for Action [DOC]

The growing number of families headed by children, the result of HIV/AIDS, has meant that older children are turning to prostitution in order to gain income for their siblings’ needs. Reports indicate that some foreign nationals in Zambia feed, clothe and prostitute young girls.  

Report by Special Rapporteur - 2003 

In Zambia, concerns are being expressed that the dramatic declines in school attendance in areas affected by household food and water insecurity are the result of parents putting young girls into prostitution in order to cope financially with the crisis 

HIV/AIDS and Child Labor In Zambia: A Rapid Assessment

Girls claimed they slept with as many as 4 men per night and their earnings ranged between US$0.63 and US$2.10 per act. Condoms were rarely used.  

Human Trafficking - Danger to Social , Economic Growth

Many of these children whose parents have died from HIV/AIDS or related diseases lack parental care and guidance, cultural, social and family ties and life skills that are usually passed on from generation to generation. They are deprived of their childhood love and care and many of them lose the opportunity to go to school. They become victims of human trafficking because they tend to be attracted to big cities and towns, with the view of earning a living.