UNIDENTIFIED MAN: In a unique collaboration, USAID, UNICEF and UNAIDS combined efforts to produce a report on children orphaned by AIDS called Children on the Brink.

ANN: (MS?) Kids Club coordinator for the (MS?) Zimbabwe. I will also add that we have three youth representatives from (MS?) countries in the front row that you can talk to about programs. This collaboration on Children on the Brink reflects an increased global commitment to respond to the large and growing number of children affected by AIDS. Children on the Brink provides statistics on orphans from 88 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America. It provides current and projected estimates of the children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS and all of other causes. This brief report details that today there are 13.4 million orphans due to AIDS in these countries and that this number is projected to grow to more than 25 million in 2010.

In countries with high levels of HIV prevalence, this problem can become even worse. In 2010, in poor African countries, one in five children will be orphaned. Even if we could stop the spread of AIDS starting today, the number of orphans would continue to increase through the next decade. We have this example from Uganda where HIV prevalence began to climb in the early 1990s. The number of orphans continued to grow for ten years and is only now beginning to decline. In Asia, the total number of orphans is larger than in Africa because the population is so much larger. However, the number of children orphaned due to AIDS is currently smaller. However, due to the large populations again, even a very small increase in HIV prevalence could cause a massive leap in the new orphans due to AIDS.

Children on the Brink provides statistics on orphans from 88 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America. It provides current and projected estimates of the children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS and all other causes. This brief report details that today there are 13.4 million orphans due to AIDS in these countries and that this number is projected to grow to more than 25 million in 2010.

In countries with high levels of HIV prevalence, this problem can become even worse. In 2010, in poor African countries, one in five children will be orphaned. Even if we could stop the spread of AIDS starting today, the number of orphans would continue to increase through the next decade. We have this example from Uganda where HIV prevalence began to climb in the early 1990s. The number of orphans continued to grow for ten years and is only now beginning to decline. In Asia, the total number of orphans is larger than in Africa because the population is so much larger. However, the number of children orphaned due to AIDS is currently smaller. However, due to the large populations again, even a very small increase in HIV prevalence could cause a massive leap in the new orphans due to AIDS.

PETER PIOT: This is without a doubt one of the most shocking reports that has been released at this conference because so many things have been said here. And it is an area that illustrates how AIDS has moved into a truly family disease affecting the most vulnerable groups in society, and in the first place also children. AIDS has created nearly an orphans crises. I think that the word is absolutely not an exaggeration, and it is an emergency. You heard some of the figures.

And I couldn’t agree more with what Ann said that even if today by some miracle all HIV transmission would stop, the number of orphans because of AIDS will continue to rise. And that’s one of the reasons that I’ve been saying for the last few weeks that we’re only at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic because we know for sure because of all the others who are going to die from HIV that the number of orphans will increase. When I saw that children are now taking up the role of adults in many societies and communities that are affected by HIV because there is just a whole generation that has disappeared because of AIDs and, therefore, they can’t go through normal development. They have to work sometimes 40 hours a week, take on the roles of parent and son, and as a result, one could safely say that the very fabric of society was disappearing with family structures crumbling.

The last point I’d like to make is that when you are orphaned because your father or your mother dies from AIDS, you carry with you the stigma and the discrimination that was associated with AIDS in your parents. If your father died in the war, he was a hero. If he died from AIDS, the shame over the whole family. So, in addition to all the problems that children have, we have that which shows that not only viruses are transmittable, but also stigma and discrimination.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yes, there are a lot of children in Zimbabwe who are actually heading households because they have lost one parent or both parents due to HIV and AIDS. And it has impacted a lot on our economic status, and just general bringing up of the child has been affected because of the loss of the parents. So it has affected, and there are a lot of children who are heading households.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: In your experience, have you seen the stigma translated much like the viruses?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yes, to a large extent because at the moment quite -- very few people who talk openly about HIV and AIDS because they are afraid of the stigma, and we have seen it in the healthcare and also in the communities. That’s why maybe there’s still a lot of silence.