In News
New EveryChild report on World AIDS Day
- 01 Dec 2010
A report by EveryChild has found that children affected by HIV or AIDS are often separated from their families, despite wanting to stay together and despite their families being capable of looking after them. Positively Caring, released on World AIDS Day, examines the impact of HIV on the home life and care of children in India, Malawi and Ukraine and finds that children affected by HIV are more likely to be placed in institutions or driven away from their families by poverty and stigma.
Anna Feuchtwang, Chief Executive of EveryChild, says:
‘Being affected by HIV can be a devastating experience for children and is therefore a time when children need their families most. But sadly, our research shows that these children are more likely to be living outside of a family than other children. The children we interviewed told us about widespread discrimination as well as their distress at being unable to make decisions about their own lives and where they should live.
It is shocking that in India, Malawi and Ukraine children affected by HIV are often separated from their families, not only through being orphaned but because of ill-health, discrimination, poverty and stress, all of which push children out of their family homes. In Ukraine, for example, some children affected by HIV are almost nine times more likely to be living without their parents than other children.
At EveryChild we are calling on those who make international policy to ensure that all children, including those affected by HIV, are supported to grow up in families. It is shameful that a child’s right and wish to grow up in their family is so often ignored by government policies and care systems.’
The report reveals the following:
- Children affected by or living with HIV face family separation and limited care choices
- Residential care is too often the default option for children affected by HIV but can be poor
- Residential care can end up discriminating against children affected by HIV
- HIV prevents children’s access to foster care and adoption
- Children affected by or living with HIV have little say in where they live
For children affected by HIV, residential care is often the default care option but the quality of care can be lacking; research in Ukraine shows that family care, even of compromised quality, is more favourable for children’s physical and cognitive development than institutional care. In Ukraine, whilst most children who live apart from their parents live with relatives, HIV positive children are classed as disabled, and placed in huge state run institutions far away from their homes.
Children being brought up in institutions can be particularly vulnerable to abuse and neglect, especially in unregulated institutions. In Malawi children are actively recruited into children’s homes through the promise of education, when family care is still available, which suggests that institutions sometimes cause, rather than respond to a lack of family care. In a misguided response to the ‘orphan crisis’ resulting from the AIDS pandemic, there is a proliferation of children’s homes being built in sub Saharan Africa, with many of these privately-funded and unregulated. This ignores the fact that with the right support grandparents, older siblings and aunts and uncles can and do provide good care for children affected by HIV.
In India and Ukraine, children affected by HIV are often isolated from other children in residential care. In India, only two of a number of NGO ‘orphanages’ in the area where the research took place accept HIV-positive children. Other private facilities do not include children who are HIV-positive on the grounds that they do not have the sufficient medical facilities or through unfounded fears that HIV-positive children may infect others. In Ukraine, the research suggests that HIV-positive children tend to be concentrated in particular residential care facilities, often specialised homes which largely care for disabled children.
It is extremely rare for HIV-positive children to be adopted, with only five foster families, caring for twelve HIV-positive children in the whole of Ukraine. Research in Ukraine suggests that this is in part due to the general stigma and discrimination associated with HIV. Labeling HIV-positive children as disabled can prevent adoption, fostering and guardianship as disabled children are required to have separate rooms, which makes it hard for poorer families to accommodate them. In India, HIV-positive children are commonly rejected by extended families.
The research in all three countries suggests that children have limited influence in the decisions around their lives. Both children and adults confirmed that children are primarily excluded from the decisions around where they live.
EveryChild is calling for international policy to enable all children, including those affected by or living with HIV, to remain with their parents, unless it is in their best interest to live elsewhere, through greater support to their families. EveryChild is also calling for an end to the unchecked expansion of residential care and that this form of care is used with caution for all children, including those affected by HIV. International policy must promote campaigns to reduce discrimination by care providers, and challenge ideas about HIV-positive children requiring specialist medical care or being a risk to other children.
