AIDS Orphans Turn to Streets for Survival

An estimate suggests that 300,000 children in Cambodia are likely to lose their parents to AIDS-related illnesses this year. And these children will possibly face staggering problems with their childhood like drug use, poverty and lack of options. Vannaphone Sitthirath of Inter-Press Service brings us this feature from Phnom Penh.


Phnom Penh (Cambodia): For six-year-old Samnang, life offers little hope. The Cambodian boy has been orphaned by the death of his parents due to AIDS-related illnesses and has recently tested positive for HIV. As many as 300,000 Cambodian children will become AIDS orphans in this country of 12 million this year, and face a whole lot of staggering problems with their childhood, according to the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Already, UNAIDS documents call Cambodia ''the Asian country with the highest adult HIV prevalence''. More than 200,000 Cambodians, or more than four percent of the adult population, are living with HIV.

HIV prevalence remains high among groups such as pregnant women and sex workers, but statistics in recent years reflect a slight decline in these rates from 1996 to 2002. The epidemic is one among a series of risk factors for children in the country, linked to issues like drug use, poverty and lack of options. These factors also affect people in border areas and drive migration to other places in Cambodia and to neighbouring countries. Without support, the children face lives of begging, odd jobs, stealing, involvement in organised crime, drug addiction and sexual exploitation.

Samnang and his two sisters are being looked after by their grandmother, who makes a living as a fortune teller. But Sebastian Marot, coordinator of the outreach centre Mith Samlanh (Friends), predicted that Samnang would soon turn to the streets of Phnom Penh for survival. “His grandmother is old and cannot go on providing for him and his sisters. He will be forced to the streets,” says Marot. “Samnang will be treated with trepidation because he is sick and will be segregated. Other people in the community also treat him very badly. It really has an enormous impact,” he adds.

“HIV/AIDS is one of the main factors that push children into difficult circumstances like being street children, being beggars and so on,” says Marot. But even when AIDS orphans are treated well by relatives, they have much to deal with -- the grief of losing parents and having to adapt to a new household. Often some run away, says Prang Chanthy of Impact Cambodia, an AIDS prevention programme. “The population of homeless people, especially children continues to increase in the capital city,” says Marot. “Phnom Penh is the magnet for many Cambodian children but the city itself cannot cater to this huge influx of kids,” he adds. “Sixty-five percent of Phnom Penh’s population is under 18.”

“Seeking to survive and have fun at the same time in the city, many of them get into drugs, which offers them momentary escape from their problems,” Marot points out. Heroin and methamphetamines are the drugs of choice for many, with the latter - now produced in Cambodia - growing in popularity among children. According to a survey by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), some street children turn to drug trafficking to finance their addiction, making trips to and from Phnom Penh to the western town of Poipet on the Thai border, the point through where most drugs flow into Cambodia. This rampant use of intravenous drugs also makes these Cambodian street children vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, since drug use is also risky behaviour in the epidemic.

Also among the substances abused by the children is glue that is used commercially in tire production in Thailand. Glue is cheap and easily available in Phnom Penh - and Laurence Gray of the non-government group World Vision says it has the immediate effect of making those who sniff it not feel hungry. Gray says that from glue-sniffing, children usually end up using more sophisticated drugs such as amphetamines. A number of organisations have set up programmes to help AIDS orphans. In Battambang, for instance, monks and nuns in a Buddhist monastery are trying to do what they can with very little money but creative approaches. “One monk can feed seven children,” says Muny Vansaveth, himself a Buddhist monk.

When he started caring for abandoned children in 1992, he alone was begging for food to feed those seven children. Now, there are 27 monks at Nor temple and 66 boys and girls, 46 of whom are AIDS orphans. “We try so hard,” says Vansaveth. “For 10 years, it was very difficult -- we had no funds. We wanted to protect them from being sold to prostitution.”

With the help of several organisations and private donations from people living abroad, Wat Norea Peaceful Children’s Home has cared for 358 children through the years. This is a safe haven for children, and 30 to 40 nuns help them in addition to the monks. Children can stay as long as they need. But despite such efforts, the vulnerabilities that Cambodian children face, including those coping with HIV/AIDS, are fast changing society. “Because of HIV/AIDS, the family structure in Cambodia is changing, as more orphans and grandparents head households,” says Lisa Garbus of the AIDS Policy Research Centre in the University of California San Francisco. “The percent of Cambodia's orphans that could be attributed to AIDS rose from 1.4 percent in 1995 to 10.9 percent in 2001; this figure will rise to 20.7 percent by 2005 and 27.5 percent by 2010,” she says in a recent report. Garbus adds: “Given years of genocide, civil war, and famine, the ability of Cambodian families to cope with AIDS orphans is severely strained.”

© Inter Press Service. The feature may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies.