Africa

The orphan crisis in sub-Saharan Africa has reached desperate proportions. In a region racked with civil war, poverty, and diseases, 12.3 million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS, and orphan numbers are projected to rise to 18.4 million by 2010 (UNAIDS, UNICEF, & USAID, 2004).

With 25 million people in the region living with AIDS, overall infection rates are more than 20 percent in seven countries and reach 38 percent in some areas (UNAIDS, 2004a). Although adult prevalence rates in the region appear to have stabilized (UNAIDS, 2004b), AIDS claimed 2.2 million lives, and 3 million people became infected in 2003 (UNAIDS, 2004a). The full impact of the AIDS pandemic hits the hardest in the lives of young children. Although only 10 percent of the world's population live in sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 80 percent of the world's AIDS orphans come from this area (UNICEF, 2003). Each orphaned child has a story and a life.

Although the orphan crisis has been building for more than a decade, the global response has been slow and unorganized. For that reason, the suffering of African orphans is relentless and huge in magnitude. Orphans are more deprived than their national peers of education, socialization, and nutrition (UNICEF, 2003). They face isolation, prejudice, crime, abuse, neglect, child labor, prostitution, exploitation, and HIV infection (UNICEF, 2003). Psychological effects include depression, guilt, fear, and possible long-term mental health problems (Foster, 2002). Orphans living in child-headed household are even more at risk and the sad news continues.