- LUSAKA, Zambia (CP) -- Patience Tembo is 12 years old, winsome and precocious.
She's a member of her school's anti-AIDS club. Even though she's not infected
with AIDS, the disease has hit very close to home. "My uncle died
of HIV. He got very ill ... very serious. So that's why I decided to join
to fight this terrible disease," says Patience. The uncle left three
children who are no longer going to school because there's no one to support
them. Patience's uncle died in 1995. Her father, who was a teacher, died
a year later -- tuberculosis, they say, although she agrees that he, too,
may have had AIDS. And now her mother is sick. "When mommy's at home,
we do have enough to eat. But now she's in the hospital ... I didn't have
breakfast this morning," Patience says. "She went last week;
she couldn't talk. But now she's much better ... But I'm very worried.
The last time I went to see her I cried, I cried."
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- Patience and her three-year-old brother
live with their grandmother and other relatives -- 19 in all. Her story
is repeated over and over again. Zambia is dotted with villages inhabited
only by grandparents and children -- the parents have all died from AIDS.
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- When there are no grandparents, the children
must fend for themselves. The number of child-headed households is growing.
The extended family system is breaking down because families are unable
to cope with the burden of caring for orphaned children. UNICEF, the United
Nations children's fund, estimates that up to 15 per cent of the rural
population and 30 per cent of the urban population is HIV-infected -- that
comes to almost one in every five people having the deadly virus.
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- The Zambia economy is reeling as citizens
die in their most productive years. The AIDS epidemic and poverty have
caused a sharp rise in the number of homeless and abandoned children. UNICEF
estimates there are more than half a million children orphaned by AIDS,
and the number may climb to one million by the turn of the century -- in
a country with 9 1/2 million people.
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- There are numerous horror stories about
orphaned children victimized by unscrupulous relatives. Clasca Mweemba,
who was 17 when her parents died four years ago, had to take charge of
her brother and two sisters who were 16, 14 and 11 years old, respectively.
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- She says their relatives wanted to marry
her and her two sisters off. When she refused, their relatives abandoned
them. "They cheated us out of our inheritance," says Clasca.
"When my dad died, a nephew was chosen to be the administrator of
the estate and he decided to do things secretly without us knowing. So
we didn't get anything from my dad's working place."
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- In many African countries, AIDS has increased
infant and child mortality rates and reduced life expectancy at birth.
UNICEF statistics show Zambia's under-five mortality rate is 202 per 1,000
compared with Canada's seven per 1,000; and life expectancy at birth in
Zambia has dropped to 43 years compared with 79 years in Canada.
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- The United Nations Population Division
says AIDS is threatening the economic and social development gains made
in Africa during the past 30 years. "I'm always attending funerals,"
says Lieut. Brighton Hachitapika, who runs an anti-AIDS program at the
Salvation Army. "People are sick, people are dying, children are dying.
AIDS is having a major impact."
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- Hachitapika says there's a lot of denial
about AIDS because of the stigma. "When you ask people what somebody
died of, they will say the person was bewitched." Monica Schinkaga
is executive director of Community Youth Concern, a private organization
which educates the public about the problems of child abuse. She says the
AIDS epidemic has caused an alarming rise in the sexual abuse of children.
"A lot of people believe that the young people are HIV-free. So they
go to the younger generations. So, this is why were having a lot of young
people being infected."
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- Aggravating the situation are traditional
healers who say the potency of their medicine is enhanced by having intercourse
with a virgin, she says. "And, usually, these are very young people."
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- The most effective work in AIDS prevention
is being done by private organizations which, despite a shoestring budget,
are run by dedicated people. The Lusaka-based Family Health Trust has nearly
1,800 youth clubs operating anti-AIDS programs throughout the country.
Its director, Elizabeth Mataka, says the group has abandoned conventional
methods for raising awareness about AIDS because they were unsuccessful
in changing sexual behaviour.
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- The group found that drama is a powerful
tool for communicating vital information to illiterate people, and using
young people to educate each other about AIDS is very effective. "The
central belief in the peer education approach is that children, or young
people, learn and are influenced more by experiences and information from
their own peers," Mataka says. "Our previous approach to the
kids was found to be largely prescriptive. In other words, we told the
kids what to do and what not to do."
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- In the West, some AIDS patients are living
longer thanks to newly developed cocktails of protease inhibitor drugs.
But at a cost of around $15,000 US, this kind of treatment is totally out
of reach for victims in Zambia -- where the government spends $7 per person
per year on health.
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