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Assist children displaced by HIV & AIDS, business community urged
Chipo Mukome, Child Protection Society (CPS)
Extracted from the Child Advocate Newsletter, Issue No. 3
December 2003

As HIV/AIDS continues to cause untold suffering and death in Zimbabwe and other sub-Saharan African countries, the business community has been challenged to ease the burden by directly assisting children displaced by the pandemic.

According to a UNICEF study in July 2002, close to one million children in Zimbabwe have been orphaned because of AIDS and this figure is expected to shoot to 1,3 million by 2005.

With no cure in sight, a great number of the Zimbabwean population continues to succumb to the deadly virus with children being the most affected. This is why it is important for community members and the business community to assist these children in a holistic way. Apart from material requirements like clothing, food, shelter, water, medicine, educational assistance, these children also require psychosocial support such as counseling, love, recreation and emotional support from the community.

In its work with children, Child Protection Society has realized that, as a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the children’s situation in Zimbabwe is desperate due to several factors. Unlike in the past, Zimbabwe has seen more children assuming parental responsibility at a very young age after their parents die as a result of HIV/AIDS. These children who have no knowledge and understanding of parental roles and responsibilities are forced to forego their childhood, thus depriving them of opportunities for survival and development. It is clear that these children will experience great difficulties in adjusting to adulthood as they are forced to skip critical stages of development.

Reports have also been received of these children being chased out of their parents’ homes by greedy relatives who sometimes claim benefits from employers, which should rightfully belong to the affected children. Without resources or knowledge of their options through legal recourse, these children resign to their fate. Unable to face the hardships at home, some of the children resort to desperate means to survive and many escape to the streets.

As a result of HIV/AIDS coupled with a struggling economy, 12,000 children are living on-and -off the streets of Zimbabwe. However, life on the streets, as research has shown does not serve the best interests of the children. A sizable population of those children are exposed to dangerous experiences which include sexual abuse, taking of harmful drugs like glue-sniffing, alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy and gangsterism.

A few of the children who lose their parents due to HIV/AIDS end up in children’s homes where the facilities may not be adequate or proper to foster a normal childhood for them.

It is against this background that the business community especially former employers of community members who die as a result of HIV/AIDS have been challenged to provide material and psychosocial support to these children.

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