Back to Index

Children pay for Zim's politics
James Elder
May 05, 2006

http://www.theindependent.co.zw/viewinfo.cfm?linkid=11&id=1916

From an earliest age children are told to reach for the stars. Very rarely however does a star reach out to them. Angelique Kidjo is one such star.

Children from Chiedza Child Care Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe. © Kubatana.net

During a break-neck schedule that criss-crossed the globe last week, Kidjo arrived in Zimbabwe and made a bee-line for Harare Children’s Hospital.

Going from bedside to bedside, Kidjo spoke at length to HIV-positive children and their mothers. Some of the children — severely malnourished and suffering infections — were too weak to talk; others lit up as Kidjo embraced them.

"The pain of these children hurts me," Kidjo said while holding the hand of a 12-month old baby who weighed just seven kilogrammes. "Children must not pay for their country’s politics. We need drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission, we need ARVs. The developed world has these drugs. Let us share them."

More than 115 000 children (0-14years) are infected with HIV in Zimbabwe. Every week, a further 565 contract the virus (because of a lack of mother-to-child transmission preventative drugs). Due to the dearth in ARVs in Zimbabwe, 550 more children will die of an Aids-related illness this week. At least 550 more next week, and so on. As a result, Zimbabwe suffers the worst rises in child mortality globally.

As she walked from cot to cot, amid children on feeding tubes, children too emaciated to lift their heads, and babies crying from pain, Kidjo lamented the lack of support to Zimbabwean women to protect their children.
"This country — this continent — is full of enterprising, hard-working, determined women," said Kidjo, a mother herself.

"It maddens me to think they are denied drugs and nutritional care to help their children."

Her words were echoed by one of the women she sat and spoke with at the Harare Children’s Hospital.

"You pray very hard that your child won’t contract the virus from you," said the mother, whose baby daughter contracted HIV during her mother’s pregnancy.

"Some are lucky, some are not. We need drugs to protect our unborn children. Our challenges now are huge — a lack of good food, not enough drugs, good health care. But I do all I can. Because of our economy, most of the time I can’t help."

Fighting back tears as she listened to this and a dozen similar testimonies, Kidjo called on Zimbabweans to demand better care within their country, and for the world to understand "the incredible resolve Zimbabweans continue to show in the face of great odds".

Advocating for their treatment and supporting orphans and vulnerable children is at the heart of Unicef’s work in Zimbabwe.

As part of the country’s National Plan of Action (NPA) for orphans and vulnerable children, Unicef is supporting the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to embark on a massive programme to improve the health, education, protection and nutrition of the country’s orphans and vulnerable children. However, life-saving drugs remain in desperately short supply.

"The vast majority of Zimbabwe’s 115 000 children who are HIV-positive could have been spared this immense burden. They contracted the virus through mother-to-child-transmission," said Unicef’s representative in Zimbabwe, Dr Festo Kavishe.

"The world has the drugs that prevent this and yet less than 7% of Zimbabwe’s HIV-positive pregnant women receive them."

Kidjo — who has been nominated for four Grammys — was a huge hit at the children’s ward, giving nurses tickets to her Zimbabwe show and then performing an impromptu jam session for more than 100 children and their mothers.

"For me these children are much more than a reminder of how fortunate we are," said Kidjo. "Their tears and their strength should remind us of our obligation to support them. They are the real stars of this world."

* James Elder is Chief, Communication & Information Officer with UNICEF- Zimbabwe

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP