Introduction
'We know that of those babies who are born HIV positive from AIDS infected
mothers, only 30% will still be infected with this virus at the age of 18
months. The other 70% will have become HIV negative. But for the 70% who
are healthy, their problems have only begun, because they will soon become
orphaned when the mother dies. In addition to this group, there are many
children who were born before their parents got AIDS, whose parents have
either already died or will do so in the near future'_ Viengping
Children's Home, Thailand
Whenever asked
how many people today are infected with HIV/AIDS world wide and how many of
them are young people, I guess most of us can make give an estimate answer
without thinking twice.
It has been calculated that of
the 33.6 million people alive today with HIV/AIDS at least one third are
young people aged 10-24. Around half of all people who acquire HIV become
infected before they turn 25. Every day 7,500 young people around the world
become infected, resulting in 2.7 million new infections a year. And around
half of these new infections typically die of the life-threatening illnesses
called 'AIDS' before their 35th birthday. While the number of those infected
continues to grow, the epidemic is also having a direct and devastating
effect on millions of other children whose lives have been permanently
altered by the intrusion of HIV/AIDS into their households or communities.
Estimations have stated that since the beginning of the epidemic 11.2
million children have lost one or both of their parents to AIDS, the
majority living in Sub-Saharan Africa, leaving South and Southeast Asia not
far behind. But tragically the number of children whose parents are ill but
have not yet died greatly outnumber the number of parents of who have lost
the battle against AIDS.
Most organisations define orphans
as those children who have lost one or both parents (dead or displaced) due
to any cause (war, dislocation and AIDS). But in the reality of AIDS a child
becomes an orphan when his entire world is turned upside down by HIV/AIDS.
Losing a parent causes grief and confusion but when a child loses a parent
to AIDS their life is worsened by prejudice and social exclusion. A positive
diagnosis almost always leads to discrimination: friends may visit less
often, children may be taunted or harassed by schoolmates; other children in
the area are forbidden to play with them. A positive diagnosis causes
destruction and destitution of the family unit. As these orphans witness the
sickness and death of their mothers and fathers, they take on more
responsibilities than they can cope with as the majority are under 15 old.
Traditionally the extended family
acts as a social network but the number of households headed by children is
increasing. As a result of labour migration, demographic changes and other
factors the extended family system is under strain. This leaves the children
no other choice, they have to take care of themselves and their younger
siblings knowing that the stigma associated with AIDS will sever any family
and social support links. Whilst fulfilling all of the roles necessary for
survival, they are often left in isolation.
The rise in the number of
children orphaned due to AIDS is a world-wide phenomenon, although most of
the research on this subject has been focused on Africa. (Danziger, R.;
1994) The aim of this paper is to project solutions from the African
situation to the nightmare cumulating of parental deaths, children's deaths
and rapidly rising number of HIV-negative orphans in South and Southeast
Asia. What kind of provisions are
there at present to support these children in Asia? And if there are none to
be found, what at the least should there be?
1.1 Set-up
The second paragraph of this
paper will give an overview of the present HIV/AIDS situation in Asia as a
whole. In the following 3 paragraphs the issue of HIV/AIDS orphans will be
central. First the picture of the affected child will be drawn in paragraph
3; than an overview of the lessons learned from the African region will be
given in paragraph 4; and in paragraph 5 an extrapolation will be made to
the future situation in South and Southeast Asia. In the last paragraph,
paragraph 6, some conclusions to this paper can be found.
Most of the literature research
was done using various keywords on different library systems. (UBA, NCC,
KITLV, KIT) Most articles were found by using the Silverplatter webspirs
databases, which are accessible through the digital library of the
University of Amsterdam (www.uva.nl); the search field was narrowed down to
sociological abstracts. Informational search was done on the Internet via
sites as www.searchalot.com, www.alltheweb.com,
and hivinsite.ucsf.edu . Sites of well-known international agencies involved
with HIV/AIDS were also browsed for information: Joint United Nations
Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), ACTIONAID, Interagency Coalition on AIDS and
Development (ICAD), The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The keywords used were many and
kept increasing, because of the fact that as soon as a keyword related to
Asia was used the search was brought down to zero search result. Words like
children, orphans, youth, infants were used; either left behind or affected
by HIV/AIDS. A search was done to find articles on the social implications
of HIV/AIDS using this particular phrase and others like family support,
extended families, social structures, family relations, family values,
children family and children community. To get insight in the healthcare the
following keywords were used: healthcare children, healthcare provision
children, and healthy childhood. All these keywords in some way or another
were combined with the words Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Asian-Pacific
and even with different country names like Thailand and India. Although a
lot of articles were found when combining the keywords children and Asia,
nothing was found when combining orphans and Asia. Most articles concerning
HIV/AIDS orphans and affected children turned out to be focusing on Africa,
Sub-Sahara Africa in particular.
In
order to be able to use the information found on the African continent for
this paper which focuses on South and Southeast Asia, I also searched for
literature which would give me an insight on socialisation, kinship
relations and extended family networks in Asia. Because of the limited time
I only found a few sources to use in the fifth paragraph. Having in mind
Ralph Bolton's recommendations that when studying AIDS in anthropology
(Bolton, R; 1998: 371) one should draw on other bodies of literature than
health sciences for insight. He suggested literature on the holocaust, on
war and post-traumatic stress syndrome. This would of course meant an extra
literature search of the same amount of time, but is in my opinion
definitely valuable to the issue at hand. For the purpose of this paper
however I only included an article of labour migration in the Philippines to
draw some conclusions on this situation for the Asian region.
