With the death of a parent children loses part of their safety net. Without the protection of a family environment, they risk missing out on school, engaging in child labour or suffering abuse, violence, exploitation stigmatization and discrimination.

Assessments by the International Labour Organization have found that orphaned children are much more likely than non-orphans to be working in commercial agriculture, domestic service, commercial sex and as street vendors. Of those children working as prostitutes in Zambia, 47 per cent were found to be double orphans (children who have lost both parents), while a further 24 per cent were single orphans (children who have lost one of their parents). Around 38 per cent of the children working in the mines in the United Republic of Tanzania - whose ages ranged between 7 and 17 years old - were orphans. In Ethiopia, more than three quarters of the child domestic labourers interviewed in Addis Ababa were orphaned, 80 per cent of them had no right to leave their jobs and many worked more than 11 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no opportunity to play and no access to information.

More than half the orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean are adolescents. Children in this age group are more vulnerable to HIV infection, not least because psychosocial and economic distress can lead to risky sexual behaviour and substance abuse. As a result, they need comprehensive sexual health education and services to reduce the risks of infection as well as relationships with caring adults through schools and faith-based or community organizations.

For all of these children, the psychosocial impact can be as grave as the physical. Even in societies where HIV/AIDS is commonplace, children in households affected by the disease or who are living with HIV themselves may still be stigmatized. They may end up being mistreated or disregarded by their foster household, or may have to endure separation from their siblings as well as the loss of their parents.