Print
this page
Email
this page Newsletters - The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Children
India
India has the largest child population in the world, with more than a third of its population below the age of 18. They are seen everywhere: the railway and bus stations; begging or vending at traffic signals; or homeless and lying on the pavements. They can be seen in villages, in the fields, in orphanages, even in brothels. They are virtually everywhere, yet are invisible, being virtually unnoticed by the world. They are the missing face of India!
Children are a vulnerable group to HIV/AIDS, whether they are infected, affected or at risk of contracting the virus. Children get infected by several means. Mother-to-child transmission is the most common source of infection in children at a rate of 30,000 per year. However, transmission is through sexual exploitation for the most vulnerable children and those at the margins, such as street children, child sex workers, sexually abused children, children of sex workers, children from lower castes and Dalits (so-called untouchables) and through blood transfusions; and unsterilised syringes, including injection drug use. While 25 million children in India are parentless, the number of sexually abused children in India is the world’s largest, with a child below 16 raped every two and a half hours, a child below ten every 13th hour, at least one in every ten children has, at some time, been sexually abused according to a new government report. Also according to official statistics, in India hundreds of thousands of children are living with HIV/AIDS. However, government programmes and policies and interventions among the NGOs are least for HIV-positive children and for those orphaned. The Indian response to HIV/AIDS has focused primarily on high-risk target groups – the sex workers, truckers and drug users – and only 20% of AIDS funding goes to caring for children and families living with HIV. One out of every three people infected with HIV is a woman, and 80% of these women are housewives. That has a direct link to children.
Children whose parents have HIV/AIDS also suffer: many are forced to withdraw from school to care for them, are forced to work to replace their parents’ income, or are orphaned. Although the Government has not conducted studies to assess the number of children affected by AIDS, some experts calculate that nearly two million children in India have lost their parents to AIDS: this is the largest number of AIDS orphans of any country and is expected to double within five years. India is now home to the largest HIV-positive population in the world with 5.7 million infected. In May 2006, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) reported that India had overtaken South Africa to become the first non-African country to report such alarming numbers. The disease is silently spreading and reaching critical proportions. The sheer size of India’s population – more than one billion – makes the probability of a widespread AIDS pandemic frightening.
HIV/ AIDS worldwide carries stigma and taboo. India is no exception and the culture of silence is predominant. Protection means providing empowering education. In India, the conspiracy of silence continues to subdue the sex education and HIV/AIDS interventions in schools. In a country where 70 out of 100 children already drop out of school by secondary level, children affected or infected by HIV/AIDS face significant barriers to attending school. These include discrimination by teachers who separate them from other students or deny them admission entirely. HIV-affected children often have frequent absences due to opportunistic infections that schools do not tolerate. The children fear revealing that they are HIV-positive in order to ask for special measures; and the loss of a family wage earner leaves them unable to pay school fees. They are also expelled from schools if any member of the family is found to be HIV-positive.
Becoming orphaned is not the only way children are affected by this epidemic. There is also a devastating impact on their emotional and psychological wellbeing. They are missing their entire childhood as they go immediately into adulthood at a very young age. They are the most common caregivers for sick parents and eventually watch those parents die, after which they all too often must step into adult roles themselves, becoming the guardians of younger siblings or working to support their remaining family. They may be denied their property and inheritance rights, often face discrimination from the community, and must deal with fears for their own health. Alarming new evidence by UNAIDS found that orphans and vulnerable children have a higher risk of exposure to HIV than non-affected children.
Girls are especially vulnerable. They are not only more likely to be removed from school to care for sick family members but are often the last to receive medical care. Loss of family income quite often pushes them into the sex trade and inability to control safe sex, even within marriage, puts them at a disadvantage. Less access to education, sexual abuse and child marriage, all place girls at higher risk of becoming infected. Many families marry daughters off at increasingly young ages so the girls will have someone to care for them after their parents die. Parents are also afraid of HIV rendering them unmarriageable. This has the added effect of creating a lot of very young widows.
Rupa (name changed) was only 13 when she was married. Widowed when she was 14, now at the age of 15 she is living with HIV. She was blamed for the death of her husband. Her siblings were thrown out of school because of her HIV status. Her family was discriminated against in the community. She has no place at her parent’s home or in her husband’s house. Rupa never received any education and has no skills for employment. Still a child, she lives on the streets, begging for food. She is sexually abused by the older men in the streets, including the police. Sometimes she earns a few rupees from them. She is expecting her baby soon. She does not even know that her child could be prevented from contracting the virus. The question is, even if she knows, how can she prevent it? When she went to the nearby hospital, she was asked to leave because she is a “bad girl”. Rupa has no place to go, and yet is soon bringing another life into this world. Who is responsible to care for both these children and the millions like her in the country? It is time for everyone to wake up. The Government, the civil society in India – and the Church – need to address the concerns of children and impacts of AIDS on them, by protecting them from abuse and violations of their rights. Today is the time to nurture the future of the country. Quoting Gabriel Mistral “…To them we cannot answer tomorrow, their name is Today.”
Top
