Children Affected by HIV and AIDS

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is having a devastating impact on the well-being of children, particularly in those countries with the highest HIV prevalence rates in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and parts of Asia. The virus affects children in multiple ways; they may lose one or both parents and other family members, or become infected with the disease.

Aside from the physical and psychosocial stress associated with the onset of the disease itself and the experience of loss of loved ones, children affected by HIV/AIDS may additionally be subjected to the burden of caring for others, stigma, discrimination, exploitation, abuse, financial hardships, and are less likely to attend school. The social and economic effects of the disease means that areas with high AIDS-related mortality are less able to provide traditional family and community care, protection and basic services for its children.

Children with HIV-positive parents are at a greater risk of being orphaned, abandoned, removed by social services, placed into foster or institutional care, becoming homeless, or left to head households on their own. Orphaned children infected with the virus often have more difficulty obtaining care. Families and communities have rallied to provide kinship care to the large majority of the children who have lost their parents, however families and communities are struggling to cope, physically and financially, with the numbers of children involved. Despite international recognition of the damaging effects of institutional care and its high costs, institutional care has proliferated, often supported by external groups wanting to help. Far too little has been done in such countries to systematically strengthen and support HIV/AIDS-affected families and families caring for orphans, or to develop family-and community-based care for children without adequate family care.

Children should be cared for by their immediate and extended families wherever possible, with support services put in place to avoid abandonment. Regulated kinship, foster care, and local adoption should be developed for children without close relatives. Young people and communities should be provided with information on HIV/AIDS to avoid infection. Adequate medical treatment is needed to enable infected parents to live longer and to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child.

The literature in this section includes background information on countries and projects tackling the crises, including statistics, policy papers, implementation projects, and care options for children orphaned or infected by HIV/AIDS.

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The Chronic Urban Emergency in Rift Valley Kenya: Report From Profiling Children Connected to the Streets in Rift Valley Province

Save the Children UK and UNICEF, 01 Aug 2012

Research was conducted in five Rift Valley towns in Kenya in 2011 to understand the link between emergencies and the perceived increase of children joining the streets. Findings show that emergencies such as Post Election Violence and drought have caused children to join the streets. By far the biggest reason for children joining the streets was food insecurity. The authors advocate for an urgent, large-scale response to place children currently connected to the streets in durable situations in tandem with a multi-sectorial development approach to tackle and address the root of the crisis.

Children Living with and Affected by HIV in Residential Care: Desk-based research

Gillian Mann, Siân Long, Emily Delap and Lucy Connell, 08 Jun 2012

Desk review of existing literature and research to track the extent to which the HIV pandemic has been a driver of growth in children’s residential care and the situation of HIV affected children in care.

Better Care Network, 06 Jun 2012

The People’s Republic of China issued its third and fourth combined report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in June 2012. This extract of the report focuses on sections relevant to children's care and in particular those addressing Family Environment and Alternative Care

Investing in Malawi's National Child Protection System to support national social protection goals: The Business Case

UNICEF Malawi , 02 May 2012

The paper argues that investing in Malawi’s emerging national child protection system will support national social protection goals. The Government is bringing together its various responses to child protection and orphans and vulnerable children as the foundation on which to build the national child protection system, with the intention of delivering a coordinated, harmonised and systematic approach to protecting children from violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect.

Child Abandonment and Its Prevention in Europe

The University of Nottingham, 2012

This comprehensive manual provides an overview of child abandonment and its prevention in Europe, exploring the extent of child abandonment, possible reasons behind this phenomenon, the consequences of abandonment, and good practices in terms of prevention. For the purposes of the EU Daphne-funded project, child abandonment is defined in two ways, namely open and secret abandonment. Country specific in-depth reviews of child abandonment and its prevention are provided for 10 countries and results from an EU-wide survey analyzed.

The Essential Package: Holistically Addressing the Needs of Young Vulnerable Children and Their Caregivers Affected by HIV and AIDS

Inter-Agency Task Force on ECD and AIDS, 2012

The Essential Package (EP) is a comprehensive set of tools and guides for policy makers, program managers and service providers to address the unique needs and competencies of young children, particularly those affected or infected by HIV/AIDS, in an integrated and holistic way. The work that has been conducted to date encourages service providers to consider the holistic needs of children according to their ages and stage of development as well as cultural context and resources available within their community.

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Global Report: UNAIDS report on the global AIDS epidemic 2012

UNAIDS, 2012

This report, produced by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS provides an update on the global AIDS epidemic as well as information on HIV prevention and treatment, HIV/AIDS as it relates to human rights and gender, HIV investments, HIV/AIDS estimates and data, and country progress indicators and data.

TransMonEE 2012 - key features

TransMonEE (Transformative Monitoring for Enhanced Equity), 2012

TransMonEE is a database that captures a vast range of data on social and economic issues relevant to the situation and wellbeing of children, adolescents and women in 28 countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States and the European Union. This document includes inter-country comparisons of data on several issues related to children’s care.

Children Orphaned by AIDS Who Live in Orphanages in Uganda. What Enables Them to Thrive?

Priscillah Rukundo - University of Bergen, 2012

This study aimed at finding out what enables children orphaned by AIDS who live in orphanages to thrive.

State of the World's Children 2012: Children in an Urban World

UNICEF, 2012

This report provides data on children living in urban settings, including statistics, conditions, and personal testimonies. The report also includes UNICEF’s recommendations for policy regarding children in urban settings, working with this population, and for future action. Sections that are relevant to children’s care include: children living and working on the streets, migrant children, urban emergencies, and many more.