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Summary: 4 May, 2002 - The pandemic of
HIV/Aids, and the poverty associated
with it, is hitting children with a force
no one foresaw, according to a new
study. In Africa, in particular, it has
already undone the achievements in
social development of the last half
century.
Aids Turns Back the Clock for World's Young
'Shameful statistics of pandemic and poverty laid before UN
special session on children
Victoria Brittain
Guardian
Saturday May 4, 2002
The pandemic of HIV/Aids, and the poverty associated with it, is
hitting children with a force no one foresaw, according to a new
study. In Africa, in particular, it has already undone the
achievements in social development of the last half century.
Life expectancy has fallen by between 18 and 23 years in the
worst affected countries; malnutrition has risen; immunisation
rates have dropped; more than 13 million children have been
orphaned by Aids, 95% of them in Africa; and four million children
have died of Aids since the epidemic began.
"These are shameful statistics for a world possessing such
extraordinary wealth, knowledge and technological capacity,"
says the study, prepared by Unicef for next week's United
Nations Special Session on Children.
The meeting will highlight the dramatic consequences of HIV/Aids
and poverty for children, and will reveal that beyond Africa, in
Asia, eastern Europe and the Caribbean, decades of hard-won
gains in child development and education are unravelling. In all
these places, where there is increasing poverty, sex is a currency
and HIV/Aids has made it a deadly one.
In Jamaica, where violence and HIV/Aids are "impacting most
heavily on children", according to Unicef, girls aged 15 to 19 are
three times as likely to contract HIV/Aids as boys in the same age
group. While deaths from traditional causes in under fives are
dropping, HIV/Aids has become the second leading cause of
death in that age group.
In the former Soviet Union "child poverty has sky-rocketed",
according to Unicef. "Some 18 million of the region's 107 million
people are living in poverty. A million and a half children are living
in public care because their families are unable to provide for
them. This is not what democracy and the market economy was
supposed to bring. It is a scandal, a massive violation of the
rights of society's youngest and most vulnerable," a Unicef
regional official said.
Vicious circle
The death of teachers, health workers and other social service
staff from Aids ravage services that are crucial to children's
welfare and development.
Thirty-six million people are living with HIV/Aids, and nearly 22
million have already died. But the stigma associated with Aids
makes denial of the disease common. In Mozambique they call
it "the century disease", and most death certificates for Aids
patients bear the words "cause unknown".
Mozambique is typical of the countries where poverty and Aids
form a vicious circle, with dramatic consequences for the next
generation. Poverty results in sexually transmitted infections
going untreated, magnifying 20-fold the risk of HIV transmission;
poverty keeps children out of school; and lack of education
multiplies the chances of girls selling sex as their only viable
economic option.
At the UN next week the leaders of about 70 countries will look at
the mixed scorecard of progress and failure in children's welfare
since the World Summit on Children in 1990. The conference was
postponed from September after the attack on the World Trade
Centre.
Big business leaders such as Microsoft's Bill Gates, the heads of
Nokia, Proctor and Gamble, and Credit Suisse will be there in
debate with leaders such as Thabo Mbeki of South Africa,
Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Vicente Fox of Mexico.
One goal of the summit is to get governments such as these to
commit themselves to improved health, education and protection
for children, but there are no illusions that this can be done
without resources. Cutting military spending and new resources
from donors are essential.
But the glaring absence of the main donor nations from the
summit in New York casts a shadow over their commitment to the
importance of children in economic development. This is
particularly startling when their own societies have one in six
children below the poverty line, according to Unicef.
"Healthy and educated children do not merely result from
economic development, they are a critical force driving it," said
Patricia Durrant, Jamaican ambassador to the UN and chair of the
preparatory process for the conference. "If we are to invest in
development, that means, first and foremost, investing in them."
A report from the World Bank calls education "crucial to the
reduction of world poverty" and promised £1bn new money to
countries making progress. But it warned that the goal of getting
all children into elementary school by 2015 was unlikely to be met
by a quarter of the countries in Africa and South Asia.
Poverty is also at the root of the exploitation of children, and
another of the session's goals is to raise the awareness of their
need for protection. Between 50 and 60 million children do what
the International Labour Organisation considers "intolerable
kinds of work". A million a year are trapped in sex work; and
300,000 child soldiers fight in 30 wars.
Other goals set in 1990 are being reached, such as a drop in
infant mortality by one-third in 63 countries; the eradication of
polio and guinea-worm disease; a cut of 50% in the 470,000
deaths from neo-natal tetanus; the prevention of a million deaths
from diarrhoea and a million child deaths from vitamin A
deficiency; and the protection of 90 million newborns from loss of
learning ability from iodine deficiency.
Life on less than $1 a day
· Every day 30,000 children under five die, mostly from
preventable causes
· One in four children live in abject poverty on less than $1 a day
· One in four children will not be immunised against any disease.
· One in three of them will suffer malnutrition in the first five years
· One in six will never go to school
· One in four will not reach the fifth class
· 300,000 children are soldiers
SOURCE: UN
Association: The Guardian