AIDS Orphans Forced into Life on the Streets

The Save the Children fund announced last week that more than 13 million children under age 15 have lost one or both parents to AIDS in the 20 years of the epidemic. Speaking in Australia before the 6th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, the charity told conferees that many orphans end up in prostitution or living a squalid existence on the streets.

According to Save the Children adviser Douglas Webb, the number of Asian children orphaned by AIDS could rise sharply as larger numbers of children survive thanks to new medical care that prevents transmission of the virus from mother to their infants. "We are likely to see a disproportionate rise in the number of orphans in this region compared to sub-Saharan Africa," Webb said.

The fund's report said that of the estimated 36.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, 1.4 million were children under the age of 15, and about 210,000 were children in South and Southeast Asia. The report also gave a chilling picture of child neglect. In India, it reported that 4 million children live on the street. One study indicated that of 1,000 children found, 250 had acquired an STD within nine months of living on the street.

In Cambodia, children as young as four have been trafficked to Thailand and forced to live for years working for a pittance, or discovered to have been raped or forced to have sex. In Indonesia, a study of 250 male street children from East Jakarta age 10 and over found that 22 percent had sex experience. Over 85 percent had never used condoms. One third of the children used illicit drugs, 20 percent sniffed glue and 49 percent drank alcohol.

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