Children suffer profoundly on many levels as their parents fall sick or die from AIDS. Their experience is often characterized by psychosocial distress, economic hardship, withdrawal from school, malnutrition and illness, fear and isolation, increased abuse, and increased risk of HIV infection.
In Zambia, AIDS is generating orphans so quickly that family structures can no longer cope. Extended families that traditionally would take in an orphaned child are not able to support all affected children under these extreme circumstances. Subsequently, many children affected by AIDS/HIV drop out of school and end up on the streets. Child labour and prostitution are common.
AIDS orphans endure the grave social isolation that often accompanies AIDS when it strikes a family. Due to this stigma, they are at an even greater risk of illness, abuse and sexual exploitation than children orphaned by other causes. AIDS orphans who are no longer incorporated into a healthy social structure are at a greater risk than their peers of eventually becoming infected with HIV themselves.
Children with an education and positive life skills will develop better self-esteem and have a chance to make healthy and well-informed choices for themselves. Education also enables them to become socially responsible beings thus reducing future infection rates.
The extent to which schools and other educational institutions are able to continue functioning (as part of the essential infrastructure of societies and communities) will influence how well (and even whether) societies eventually recover from the epidemic. A decline in school enrolment is one of the most visible effects of the epidemic, but a good basic education ranks among the most effective and cost-efficient means of preventing HIV.
It is hard to over-emphasize the trauma and hardship that children affected by AIDS/HIV are forced to bear in Zambia and worldwide. Not only does AIDS/HIV lead to children losing their parents or guardians, but it often means they lose their childhood as well. Education can give them a chance at a future.