Rakesh Rajani, Research Fellow at Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. A third speaker needs yet to be confirmed. This paper focuses on what is happening to AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe, where the epidemic is particularly severe and where it overlays growing poverty in a collapsing economy. Traditional models of childhood do not equip us to conceptualise solutions. But studies of children in difficult circumstances suggest that we can expect initiatives from children, who can be active and successful agents in shaping their own lives.
Childhood is a transient stage in human life.
Children are rarely able to speak for themselves in academic environments, which must consequently rely on the discourse of people who are no longer children. Indeed, childhood covers a variety of ages, in which children have different degrees of competence. Children in one age group are not necessarily the best persons to speak for children in others. Concepts of childhood, and particularly the rights and responsibilities of children, also vary across cultures. In any research on children, it is difficult to make sure that attention is paid to the voices and interests of particular children.