AIDS is the number one killer in Africa. In Africa, nearly one out of every four people is HIV positive. This disease has left an estimated 13.4 million African children under the age of fifteen without one or both parents. By the end of the year 2000, about thirteen-million children were orphaned by AIDS. Many analysts view orphan hood a more serious problem than increases in child mortality in Africa.
Orphaned children numbers have increased significantly over the years due to the many diseases lingering in Africa. AIDS and many other diseases threaten the lives of millions of parents each day. AIDS is popular in Africa due to a number of social and cultural factors. Some factors that contribute to the high rate of AIDS include the high rates of rape in many African countries, the low age of sexual initiation among females, and the age difference between young women and their first male sexual partners
who a lot of times are middle-aged men seeking virgins as sexual partners protect themselves from AIDS. When the parents die from AIDS the children are left to tend to themselves, even children as young as the age of four. The children often suffer from starvation and malnutrition.
Children are generally considered as burdens when left as orphans in Africa. Children who are the victims of double orphan hood are often place an impossible financial and social burden on elderly grandparents. There are also often viewed as a disease in itself, a breeder of criminals, militia and sex workers. Ten percent of the six million people who have AIDS are children, due to mother-to-child-transmission or soon after birth through breast-feeding. This is the indication of the epidemic's impact on African countries with the increase number of AIDS orphans who have lost and are still losing parents to this disease. One third o
Example Essays Home
