This page is background information, last updated in May 2002 and still available for reference. For the latest on the Special Session on Children, please go to the Special Session index.

Millions of children orphaned by AIDS pandemic

10 May 2002, NEW YORK - By 2001, AIDS had killed the mother or both parents of 10.4 million children under the age of 15, orphaning some 2.3 million children in 2000 alone.

Kenya – Children at the UNICEF-assisted Kibera Day Care Centre in Kibera, the largest shanty town in Nairobi. The centre offers children basic education skills and also provides meals for children orphaned by AIDS.

Wisdom Murowa, 17, of Malawi, is one of those orphans. At a supporting event to the UN Special Session on Children called 'Children Affected by HIV/AIDS', Wisdom urged government representatives, international organizations, UN agencies and corporations to "treat HIV/AIDS as an emergency and stop it from destroying the lives of so many children."

The panel, sponsored by UNICEF, the United States Agency for International Development and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, opened with Nane Annan, wife of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who said eradicating HIV/AIDS was a top priority for Mr. Annan.

Peter McDermott, a consultant to USAID on HIV/AIDS, said that as a result of the devastation wrought on families by HIV/AIDS, the family structure and social fabric of entire societies are being undermined. And, he added, we are still on the upward curve of the pandemic. "Never before has the world faced the possibility of so many orphans," he said.

Samantha Mundeta, an 18-year-old AIDS activist from Zimbabwe, said her best friend succumbed to the disease at 16. The friend, whose father had died, contracted the disease after becoming a sex worker to support her family.

Mr. McDermott said the world must mobilize resources to prevent new infections, to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV and to keep parents and other caregivers alive longer so that they can look after the children. "Why is it," he asked, "in a time when we've never had so much wealth and innovative technology, we can't do what is required?"

Read more about HIV/AIDS