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The Lost Generation - Fighting for the Future
African Communities Cope With Orphan Crisis, But
Strain Under the Pressure
By Geraldine Sealey ABC News, July 9, 2003
The parents of Africa are dying of AIDS, and their children are fighting
to live.
"Only the strong can survive," said Humphrey Mulenga, an 18-year-old
Zambian whose parents died when he was 11. Mulenga was homeless for two
years — begging for money and looking for a better life before he
found refuge at a center for orphaned children.
"I decided to start fighting for my future," he said.
AIDS and the plight of orphaned children will be a priority for President
Bush as he tours five African nations this week. Ten percent of the U.S.
$15 billion global AIDS relief package is earmarked to help children left
orphaned by the disease.
"Millions of lives depend on the success of this effort and we are
determined to succeed," Bush said before departing for Africa.
But critics say Bush and other international leaders may be bringing too
little, too late to the fight.
For more than two decades, AIDS has whittled away at African societies,
plunging life expectancy into the 30s in many sub-Saharan nations. The
disease has gutted the ranks of professionals — snuffing out teachers,
farmers and soldiers. And the children, with the future of the continent
on their backs, fend largely for themselves as the ranks of the orphaned
continue to balloon.
Consider these staggering figures: By 2010, the total number of children
orphaned by AIDS is expected to nearly double, to 25 million. In sub-Saharan
Africa, 42 million children will be orphaned by all causes, 20 million
children due to AIDS.
Even with unprecedented global attention on the AIDS pandemic, the orphan
crisis will persist for years. In general, death lags behind HIV infection
by about 10 years, so even in a country where HIV prevalence has declined,
orphan numbers remain high.
For anyone looking for a motivation beyond pure human tragedy, the stakes
in fighting the orphan crisis are high — for Africa and beyond.
Orphans, many of whom are school dropouts and homeless, are more likely
to be malnourished, prostituted, and forced into domestic labor than their
non-orphan counterparts, according to the United Nations Children's Fund.
The U.S. government has worried aloud that disillusioned and abandoned
orphans could become prey to terrorist networks in search of recruits.
Already, in countries like Liberia, Angola, Sierra Leone and Uganda, warring
factions have conscripted orphans as child soldiers.
And all this comes after unthinkable emotional trauma — a massive,
shared loss that will surely leave its imprint on the African continent
for generations.
"The mother often dies in agony on the floor of a mud hut over a
protracted period of weeks and the children watch their mother die,"
said Stephen Lewis, the U.N. secretary-general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS
in Africa. "I don't know how you ever regain your emotional balance.
I don't know what it does to you in later years."
The Safety Net, Straining
At one time in many African societies, there was no such thing as an orphan.
When parents died, children were absorbed into their extended families
— no questions asked. That is still true, to an extent.
The majority of children who lose parents move in with a grandmother,
aunt or uncle. To help care for the child, relatives might sell handicrafts
or vegetables in roadside stalls to raise money — or just go without
that extra mouthful of food.
Good friends and neighbors also help out. Women who themselves are poor
and caring for sick family members often band together as "home-based
caregivers" to help AIDS patients and their children in their homes,
or check in on orphaned children caring for their siblings.
For sure, many African communities are doing heroic work against daunting
odds on behalf of children.
"We need to take into account the enormous absorptive power of the
community," said Father Michael Kelly, a Jesuit priest who works
with orphans in Lusaka, Zambia's capital. "That is the safety net
we're subsisting on at the moment."
But that net is showing signs of strain, threatening to give way under
the crushing weight of poverty and illness.
"Families are struggling to feed their own and educate their own
and the added burden [of caring for orphans] actually presents a lot of
stress," says Elizabeth Mataka, director of Family Health International,
a community group that works in the poor neighborhoods of Lusaka.
The worry is that as AIDS deaths continue to mount, children will no longer
find refuge in their relatives' homes, forcing many onto the streets.
And yet, that old African safety net of extended family, fragile as it
may be, appears to be the only viable solution to caring for orphans.
Using orphanages on a large scale has been roundly dismissed as a long-term
plan. Just about every expert — including the United Nations —
agrees that institutionalizing millions of children is too expensive,
unrealistic and detrimental to the development of both children and society.
Doing So Much With So Little
As it stands, many African communities trying to beat this unprecedented
social catastrophe operate in a near-vacuum of resources. In poor nations,
government money for AIDS-related programs is negligible — any available
funds are often eaten away by corruption or ineptitude. Even in countries
where nonprofit organizations are well-established and decently funded,
the programs are overburdened by the great demand for help.
The result is a patchwork of relief programs that help a handful of children
here or there, but no comprehensive response that reliably addresses the
crisis.
"It's the intense human response to a tragedy no one knows how to
resolve and yet everyone wants to do something," said Lewis, the
U.N. envoy for AIDS in Africa. "The important thing is that that
shouldn't go on too long. You just can't have these fractured responses;
too many children fall through the cracks."
In June 2001, a U.N. special session on HIV/AIDS committed to developing
and putting into place national policies that build the capacities of
governments, communities and families to support children orphaned and
otherwise affected by HIV/AIDS. The agreement was, by 2005, to provide
counseling, ensure enrollment in school and access to education, good
nutrition, health and social services, and protect children from abuse,
violence, exploitation, discrimination, trafficking, and the loss of inheritance.
But few countries are on track to accomplishing these goals, UNICEF Executive
Director Carol Bellamy warned last November. Bellamy and other leading
advocates for children say the global response to the orphan crisis has
been grossly inadequate.
What No Aid Package Can Give
The world's most comprehensive and cost-effective response to the AIDS
crisis, the Global Fund for AIDS, TB, and Malaria, is in danger of not
having enough money just as countries have applied for grants specifically
to help orphans.
The industrialized nations, including the United States, have been criticized
for underfunding — and undermining — the Global Fund. Critics
have lambasted President Bush for cutting U.S. appropriations nearly in
half from what Congress approved for fiscal year 2003.
And though Bush will tout his $15 billion global AIDS relief package in
Africa this week, not everyone thinks he should do a victory lap of Africa
just yet.
Global AIDS activists say the U.S. AIDS money, spread out over five years,
is too slow in coming and accuse Bush of failing to seek full congressional
funding of his plan. Even with Bush in Africa, a House subcommittee in
Washington this week is expected to pare back appropriations for his plan.
"Millions of orphans and vulnerable children are among those paying
the price for this tragic negligence," said Paul Zeitz, executive
director of the Washington-based Global AIDS Alliance.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said last week that the president
and his aides were "actively engaging with the Congress to try and
get full funding."
Further, critics charge that U.S. trade policies prevent African countries
from importing generic AIDS drugs, thereby forcing them to purchase more
expensive brand-name drugs.
U.N. envoy Lewis also has been a vocal critic of how industrialized nations
have responded to the orphan crisis.
"You can prolong life for years, you can diminish the orphan population
hugely by keeping the mothers alive, and for whatever reason the Western
world has been trapped in a kind of moral turpitude, an unbelievable negligence
in refusing to provide the resources," Lewis said.
Despite some criticism, Bush's AIDS plan is an unprecedented ramping up
of U.S. funding to address the pandemic. He and his aides say he is committed
to helping solve Africa's crisis.
"It is the Motherland, of course," Rice said last week. "A
source of cultural pride for a substantial part of America's population,
and the president cares about that."
Richard Stearns, president of the faith-based international aid group
World Vision, agrees.
"I really think that the president's first motivation in this whole
AIDS response really comes out of his Christian faith and his Christian
belief that we need to help our neighbors and care for the widows and
orphans, in particular, in Africa," he said.
Regardless of how much money comes from Washington or elsewhere, Father
Kelly of Lusaka says, Africa's orphaned children have suffered a loss
that no one can replace.
"They've been cut off from the one thing that no aid package and
no $15 billion from President Bush can ever give them," he said,
"and that is a parent, and the care and love and concern that you
can only get from a parent."
ABCNEWS' Geraldine Sealey spent five weeks in Zambia with the Pew
Fellowships in International Journalism reporting on how the AIDS crisis
has affected children.
How to Help:
To help the children featured in "The Lost Generation" and
other African children, contact the following organizations:
Fountain of Hope
c/o Project Concern International
Donate online:
http://www.projectconcern.org/givenow.html
Donate by mail:
Project Concern International
3550 Afton Road
San Diego, CA 92123
Lusaka Anglican Children's Project (Canaan Center)
c/o Family Care Foundation
Donate online:
http://www.familycare.org/getinvolved/donateform.htm
Donate by mail:
Family Care Foundation
P.O. Box 1039
Spring Valley, CA 91979 USA
Hope for African Children Initiative
Donate online:
http://www.hopeforafricanchildren.org/New/donate_here_index.html
To assist AIDS orphans around the world, UNICEF USA can be contacted via
their website.
Donate online:
www.unicefusa.org
Donate by mail:
U.S. Fund for UNICEF
333 East 38th St.
New York, N.Y. 10016
Donate by phone:
1-800-FOR-KIDS
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