Simple Thoughts: 2009

“A thirteen-year-old Kenyan AIDS orphan gave away her virginity in exchange for an apple. Asked why, she replied, ‘No one has ever given me anything before’” (Guest 1). This type of desperate searching for any sign of love or even acknowledgement is common in children who have been orphaned and abandoned because of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. Their perspective on life is bleak, at best, and hope of a better future is dwindling as their plight is continually overlooked. The HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa is an ongoing problem. Two-thirds of the world’s global total for HIV infected people live in southern Africa; an estimated twenty-two million (UNAIDS 170). HIV’s transformation into full blown AIDS has left millions of children orphaned and homeless in Africa.

Currently there are an estimated twelve million children left parentless by the deaths of seventeen million AIDS patients in Sub-Saharan Africa. Who will raise these children? Melissa Fay Greene answers this question, “Well, as it turns out, no one. Or very few. There aren’t enough adults to go around. Although in the Western industrialized states HIV/AIDS has become a chronic condition rather than a death sentence, in Africa a generation of parents, teachers, principals, physicians... coaches, farmers and business owners are being erased” (Greene 23). Though the topic of AIDS in Africa is not new, the aspect of AIDS orphans is one often overlooked and under-acknowledged. AIDS has ravaged Africa in more ways than one, but perhaps one of the most damaging effects of the disease is the neglect of millions of children.

HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is a virus that destroys the body’s ability to fight infections and illnesses. This is accomplished by destroying certain white blood cells called T-cells. These cells are the ones that alert the immune system to infection. When enough of these cells are destroyed, then HIV has become AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) and the immune system no longer works (World Health Organization). This disease is often a painful and difficult one to fight, due to the many sicknesses to which AIDS patients can easily succumb.

Some of the common ways to contract HIV are unprotected sex and contact with infected blood (World Health Organization). Contrary to popular belief, HIV can be contracted by people who are not sexually active. Some of the ways this occurs include the transfer of HIV from mother to child by means of pregnancy or breastfeeding. This puts many children, especially in Southern Africa at particular risk. The United Nations program on HIV/AIDS, or UNAIDS, estimates that about two million African children under the age of fourteen are HIV positive as of 2007 (UNAIDS 216). In Zambia, about half of the children at age 15 are expected to die of Aids (Ellis 98).

Besides the unavoidable ways to contract HIV, one of the main reasons that so many children are developing the disease is due to lack of education. “In 2005 it was recorded that seventy-five percent of girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four in Sub-Saharan Africa do not know that AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease” (Maxwell 164). The vicious cycle that lack of education and HIV/AIDS create is one that is not easily broken. Janine Maxwell describes this cycle in her book It’s Not Okay With Me,

“AIDS leads to poverty because the parents can’t go to work because they are too sick. Poverty leads to hunger because there is no money to buy food so women and girls are forced to prostitute themselves for money or bread. Prostitution leads to AIDS and the spreading of AIDS. AIDS leads to death which leaves orphans. Orphans can’t work so they have no money which leads to hunger and more poverty. Without income the children can’t pay their school fees and therefore don’t get an education which leads to ignorance. Ignorance coupled with free time (no job, no school) leads to unprotected sexual activities and/or prostitution, which leads back to AIDS, death, orphans, and the cycle starts to spin faster” (Maxwell 164)

The lack of education is not always a simple problem to solve. In fact one contributing factor to the lack of schooling is that the school teachers themselves are dying. One million African children have had a teacher die of AIDS (UNAIDS 177). This problem will take more than money to solve; it will take man-power. The most direct way of providing this is by supplying volunteers who would be willing to go to Africa and educate both adults and children about AIDS prevention and care, as well as general education, so as to promote further learning.

While health problems and lack of education are important issues, they are not the only difficulties families torn by AIDS experience. Emma Guest describes the toll AIDS has on children and families in Africa, “As adults die, families grow poorer. As families grow poorer, children go hungry, they grow weak and vulnerable to infectious diseases. If they have inherited HIV from their mothers, this leaves them more vulnerable still. Many grow up with stunted bodies and minds” (Guest 157). Not only are African children affected environmentally and physically by the HIV virus but serious emotional problems can also arise.
One of the primary traumas children of AIDS experience is in the death of their family members. Watching parents die is a heartbreaking experience that results in children matured before their time. Molatela is a seventeen-year-old orphan from South Africa. When her parents died she inherited the responsibility of raising three of her brothers aged fourteen to three, all of whom are HIV positive. She describes the experience of her parents’ death in a matter-of-fact manner, “My mum was always sick. Maybe since ’95. But my father was only sick since June this year and he died in July. Very quick. It was a shock. I didn’t know he was sick too” (Guest 131). No child should be left alone to cope with both the death of their parents and the pressure of raising a family.

Another primary emotional problem is that children of AIDS are constantly uprooted from their homes. After their parents die it becomes increasingly difficult to find homes at all. This has had a devastating effect on families. Stephanie Nolan elaborates, “Parents died and their children were taken in by an aunt or an uncle. But then the aunts and uncles sickened or died. The children went to other aunts, then to grandparents. The grandparents died, and then the children went to neighbors. Each move unsettled already traumatized children and eventually, there was nowhere left for them to go” (Nolan 34). With situations like this, it’s no wonder that AIDS orphans experience emotional trauma.

Some other emotional and mental problems children of AIDS suffer include psycho-social problems such as post-traumatic stress. This often is evidenced by disruptive or aggressive behavior, elective mutism (refusing to talk), suffering from depression or anxiety, and feeling unwanted. Many orphans in Zambia say they no longer feel loved and that they expect to die soon without ever being happy (Ellis 37). Such despair in children so young is quite unheard of in America, yet it is common in southern Africa. Children of AIDS are dying, not simply from physical illnesses, but from serious emotional and mental damage. Education and food alone will not improve this dismal outlook on life; these children have seen too much. In many ways, love seems to be the only effective solution to these deeper issues.

So what do we do? How do we deliver both practical solutions and emotional support to these children who so desperately need assistance? To begin with, far too little medical aid reaches Africa. In 2006, about five million people in Africa were in immediate need of the life saving AIDS drugs and only five-hundred thousand had access to them (Greene 24). If we can prevent both parents and children from dying by making sure they have the proper medication when they need it, we can begin to put a stop to the AIDS cycle. Several organizations have been created to raise funds for this purpose such as (RED), ONE, and Africare.

Another way to come to the aid of these children is for adults in other countries to considered adopting one or two AIDS orphans. These children could then be cared for by people with more financial stability, as well as have access to more direct attention for their specific needs. Another possible solution is for volunteers to go to Africa and assist AIDS health care workers in caring for the children. This solution is more temporary, yet it is still a viable option. Some other ways to help include going on an exposure trip and assisting in handing out doses of medication, educating, feeding and giving love. Some organizations offering these types of trips include Cross-Cultural Solutions and Humanitarian Project Africa. Whether donating towards ending this terrible cycle of death or going to help love orphans who have been abandoned, we must to do something.
One of the many arguments against assisting Africa in it’s AIDS crisis is that we have children at home to care for and look after. Can we really take care of our own while becoming responsible for the children of millions of others? The answer is a resounding yes. In order to truly take care of our own children we must value children. And how can we claim to value children as we sit by and watch millions of children die and families fall apart from starvation and illness? Whether this crisis is the United States’ responsibility or not is not the issue. Whether or not it is our responsibility as humans, the majority of whom are or will be parents, is the issue. We cannot continue to claim concern for our own children while ignoring the concerns of others’.

“There are fifteen million children who have been orphaned by AIDS. In 2005 the prediction of the World Health Organization was that there would be forty-three million by the year 2010. They have now down-graded that prediction to be ‘only’ eighteen million. Why is that? Is it because fewer people are dying? Or is it because the children are dying? It is the latter. When the parent dies, there is no one to feed the children. If no one is there, the children will die and the forty-three million prediction drops to eighteen million, because TWENTY-FIVE MILLION OF THEM WILL BE DEAD” (Maxwell 192). If we cannot step up and do something about this horrible situation we now find ourselves in we will be held accountable. As Janine Maxwell says, “They will look at us and say, ‘Mommy, how could you sit by for...years and watch three million people die of AIDS each year...They could have been saved” (Maxwell 166). They could have been saved. Many of them still can be saved. What will your response be? Will you continue to sit at home, waiting for the disease to burn itself out, while millions of children are being orphaned and starved? Or will you choose to contribute to finding an answer to this problem that the world now faces?

Works Cited
Ellis, Deborah. “Our Stories, Our Songs.” Ontario: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2005. Print.
Greene, Melissa Fay. “There is No Me Without You.” New York: Bloomsbury, 2006. Print.
Guest, Emma. “Children of AIDS.” London: Pluto Press, 2001. Print.
Maxwell, Janine. “It’s Not Okay With Me.” Enumclaw, WA: Winepress Publishing, 2007.
Nolan, Stephanie. “28 Stories of AIDS in Africa.” New York: Walker Publishing, 2007. Print.
UNAIDS. “Report On the Global AIDS Epidemic.” Mexico City: UNAIDS Publications, 2008. Print.
World Health Organization. “Towards Universal Access Progress Report 2009.” Malta: WHO Press, 2009. Print.

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