The International Labor Commission estimates that 250 million are working full or part time, depriving them of an education, according to Compassion International, a group that helps children. They are more fortunate than the girls, who might be for sex by their parents, he said. About 1.2 million teens are homeless and many are addicted to alcohol and drugs. About 650,000 children live in orphanages. The government provides only about 30 percent of their requirements and orphanages raise the rest from their communities and international aid agencies, the ministry said.
Many children are ill because of nutritional deficiencies.
At 16 they are forced out of the orphanages to make room for younger ones and there are few halfway houses to prepare them to survive. Thousands of children in Sierra Leone are physically and emotionally scarred by its brutal civil war. AIDS orphaned more than 12 million children in sub-Saharan Africa in 1999 and there will be an estimated 40 million AIDS orphans on the continent by 2010, said World Relief's Debbie Dortzbach. Without income they can't buy food or clothing or pay for their schooling, she said, and because they have no rights they can lose their homes and family possessions. They are buffeted on all sides.