Lesotho: Sacrificing Youth for Adult Duties

In Lesotho, 15-year-old Rapelang Ntsane is one of an estimated 1,860 teenagers orphaned by AIDS who now function as the head of their household. When Rapelang was born in April 1991, 2 percent of women tested at Lesotho's prenatal clinics were HIV-positive. That figure climbed to 20 percent five years later. By 2003, it was 30 percent.

Rapelang's father, a gold miner, died of AIDS in 1999; Rapelang's mother died two years later, leaving Rapelang and his sister and brother, Itumeleng and Tokelo, now 11 and eight years old, to the care of their maternal grandmother.

When his grandmother contracted TB, Rapelang was forced to care for her; but in 2005 she died, too, and by that time he had missed so many classes he failed fourth grade. Besides, he said, he was told he could not attend school without shoes. No other relatives are able or willing to take in the Ntsane children.

Of Lesotho's 1.9 million population, the UN estimates about 100,000 youths are AIDS orphans.

"We are hoping very soon the orphan situation in Lesotho will be declared a national crisis, because this is what it has become," said Limakatso Chisepo, director of the Department of Social Welfare (DSW).

In addition to lentils, corn meal, and cooking oil that Mafeteng's public hospital donates to the Ntsane children, they receive $14 monthly from DSW. Lesotho has no government-run orphanages, but DSW is considering a foster grant program to ease the burden of those caring for relatives orphaned by AIDS.

Back to other news for October 12, 2006