The Orphan Gap

Abstract

The overall theme of AIDS 2006 in Toronto Canada was Time to Deliver. However as you attended sessions and heard the statistics research presentations and collective stories of the pandemic it seemed a more appropriate title might have been Why Have We Not Delivered? The number of high-profile individuals addressing the conference was impressive. There was some straight talk from former President Clinton who participated in the conference for several days. Bill and Melinda Gates financial commitment to addressing HIV/AIDS was a welcome signal that at least some world leaders are aware of this growing disaster. But mixed among the high-profile scientists public figures and politicians the more common participant in this pandemic was symbolized by the held in conjunction with the conference. These grandmothers are women who have raised their own families to adulthood but now find themselves in their later life having to take the responsibility for raising another generation of children their grandchildren because their children have died from AIDS. As you watched these older women march through the streets of Toronto you could not help becoming aware of two realities. First these women marching in Toronto represented potentially hundreds of thousands of women throughout the world who struggle to survive and now have to worry about caring for their grandchildren. The vast majority of the women caring for AIDS orphans could not afford to come to Toronto. Second the children who have grandmothers to care for them are the lucky ones. A growing number of AIDS orphans have no one. (excerpt)