As has been widely reported, AIDS is in the process of decimating the population of some African nations. One of the byproducts of the large number of AIDS deaths is a large number of orphans. Current estimates are that there are 16 million children who have lost at least one parent to AIDS and by 2010 that number could rise to as high as 30 million. Many of those children will be orphans who have lost both parents, and many will have lost their parents at a very young age. How to handle the large influx of orphans is an enormous social problem.
At a three-hour session organized by the Global Health Council, Albina du Boisrouvray of Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Foundation likened the large number of orphans to “a time bomb” because the children “will be unprepared to become productive citizens.”
Various participants in the seminar had different approaches and suggestions, but the bottom line appears to be that developing nations are so busy using their meager resources to trying to prevent an AIDS disaster that dealing with orphans isn’t a high priority. Peter Piot of the United Nations AIDS program summed up the current state of affairs,
AIDS orphans have not been on the agenda really. It all sounds so very obvious and yet it’s not. When you look at resources there are very few — and the organizations dealing with this have not really talked to each other before.
Source:
Advocates say orphans are time bomb in AIDS pandemic. The Associated Press, September 12, 2000.