LEAGUE TABLE: CHILDREN ORPHANED BY AIDS The devastating impact of the AIDS crisis on children in the developing world has yet to be fully understood. The number of orphans, particularly in Africa, constitutes nothing less than an emergency, requiring an emergency response. As already impoverished societies struggle with this massive blow, their hard-won gains in social development — including improvements in child health, nutrition and education — are being wiped out. Magnitude of the orphan crisis Loss is an inevitable corollary of disease and death, but the wrenching toll taken by AIDS is unique: So far the disease has left 8.2 million children without a mother or both parents, the vast majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa. And the total continues to grow, expected to reach 13 million by the year 2000, of whom 10.4 million will still be under the age of 15. The children's personal tragedies are enormous. So, too, are the social crises occurring as the worst affected communities and nations - among the poorest in the world — struggle to care for the ill as well as a generation of orphans, on a scale unprecedented in human history. In most parts of the industrialized world, usually no more than 1% of the child population is orphaned. Before the onset of the AIDS epidemic, societies in the developing world absorbed orphans into extended families and communities at a rate just over 2% of the child population. In contrast, a staggering 11% of children in Uganda are now orphans because of AIDS. In Zambia, 9% are orphans; in Zimbabwe, 7%; and in Malawi, 6%. Where prevalence rates among women are high, so are the numbers of children left behind. Nor are these losses abating: In 35 countries, the rate at which children have been orphaned has doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in just three years, from 1994 to 1997. Fears are that, because of AIDS, Asia will see its orphan population triple by the year 2000. And at this moment, according to UNAIDS, the number of children living with an HIV-positive parent is far greater than the number of children already orphaned, a disturbing prospect for the future. Children who have lost their mother or both parents are society's most vulnerable members. Socially isolated because of the stigma of AIDS, they are less likely to be immunized, more likely to be malnourished and illiterate, and more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Finding the resources needed to help stabilize the crisis and protect children is a priority that requires urgent action from the international community.
The number of under-15s per 10,000 who have lost their mother or both parents to AIDS
Note: These estimations do not include those children who have lost only their father. Comparable data on the number of children orphaned by AIDS are not available for many of the developed countries or those in transition, so these countries have been excluded from the league table.
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