OWN CORRESPONDENT, London | Monday
MORE than 12 million children in sub-Saharan Africa — equivalent to every child in Britain under the age of 15 – have been orphaned by Aids, according to a report Monday by the British charity Christian Aid.
By 2010, that figure will have risen to 43 million children, by which time the virus will have cost the South African economy alone more than $22,5-billion (R180-billion), it warned. Mark Curtis, head of policy at the charity, said: “An entire generation is growing up without parents, without teachers, without a future.”
Youngsters are often orphaned two or three times over as their parents die, and they are placed with aunts, uncles and other close relatives who also fall victim to the disease.
Many are forced to take to the streets where they grow up in “an emotional and spiritual vacuum,” the charity added in its report, entitled No Excuses.
“Villages are becoming ghost towns; local economies are crumbling,” it said.
“The orphaned children, as adults, will not be equipped to drive the economic engine of Africa. “This will make the struggle for development and growth on the continent even tougher.”
The charity said more than two million people in Africa died from Aids last year and 25,3-million are living with the disease or its precursor HIV.
In sub-Saharan Africa, 8,5% of the population have the virus.
Christian Aid called on the British and other Western governments to boost development assistance in order to tackle the crisis.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have said that developed countries should be contributing 0,7% of gross national product by 2010 – the figure for Britain is currently just over 0,31%.
“The UK is committed to reducing world poverty, but there is no way we can meet these targets without tackling HIV and Aids,” Curtis said.
“Words are not enough. It is time for rich-country governments to stump up or shut up.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, called the situation in Africa “a staggering problem” that was being driven by dire poverty.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the charity’s “hard-hitting report” was directed at the government and the church alike.
“A good, generous country looks beyond its borders to transform the world in which we live,” Carey said.
“I believe it’s money well spent and a challenge to us all.”
In a report last week, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said deaths caused by HIV/Aids in the 10 hardest hit African countries could cut the rural workforce there by a quarter by 2020.
Since 1985, some seven million agricultural workers have died from AIDS-related diseases in 24 African countries and an estimated 16 million more deaths are feared in the next two decades.
This could cut the workforce by as much as 26%, said the report, prepared for the 27th Session of the Committee on World Food Security which is to meet in Rome on May 28-June 1.
“Throughout history, few crises have presented such a threat to human health and social and economic progress as does the HIV/Aids epidemic,” it said. – AFP