This is particularly so in many poorer countries, which have been unable to benefit from the recent advances made in antiviral therapy, and where even inexpensive medicines to treat HIV-related illnesses and reduce suffering are often unavailable. Children living in communities struck by AIDS feel its impact as their parents and teachers become infected, as health and social services are stretched beyond their limits, and as their families also take in other children who have been orphaned by the epidemic. No one yet knows what effect this will have on the children and their future. When an HIV diagnosis occurs in the family, the household often also suffers disproportionately from stigma, isolation and impoverishment, the report notes. A recent study in Thailand found that many parents had lost jobs as a result of AIDS and that stigmatization, due largely to incorrect beliefs about HIV transmission, was widespread.
Children have a right to be better informed and better protected.
No one knows how many child sex workers there are in the world but recent figures indicate that more than 1 million children enter the sex trade every year. Awareness is also growing of the scale of child abuse that takes place in or near the home. A study of children under 12 being treated for a sexually transmitted disease at a clinic in Zimbabwe showed that the majority had been abused and infected by neighbours or close relatives, the report states. But if children are an increasing part of the AIDS problem, they are also a critical part of the solution. Information and the promotion of children's rights are important keys to reducing risk behaviour.