They also my be the first to be denied education when extended families can not afford to educate all the children of the household. Children who have been orphaned by AIDS may also not receive the health care they need, and sometimes this is because it is assumed they are infected with HIV and their illnesses are untreatable. Often emotionally vulnerable and financially desperate, orphaned children are more likely to be sexually abused and forced into exploitative situation, such as prostitution, as a means of survival. A child whose mother or father has HIV begins to experience loss, sorrow and suffering long before the parent's death. And since HIV can spread sexually between father and mother, once AIDS has claimed the mother or father, the children are far more apt to lose the remaining parent.
Children thus find themselves thrust in the role of mother or father or both.
Because of this sigma and the often irrational fear surrounding AIDS, children may be denied access to schooling and health care. And once a parent dies, children, particularly in the case of girls, may also be denied their inheritance and property. Moreover, as the rights of children are inextricably liked to those of their surviving parents, laws and practices that deny widows their right and property have devastating consequences for children after their father's death. Uganda's high-level response, and its outspoken acknowledgement of the crisis, remains a model. As early as 1986, the Government acknowledged the AIDS crisis and began mobilizing both domestic and international support to combat it.