MELBOURNE, Australia, Oct 9 (AFP) - More than 13 million children under the age of 15 have lost one or both parents to AIDS since the condition was first detected 20 years ago, the Save the Children fund said on Tuesday.
And the charity told the Sixth International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific many of the orphans ended up in prostitution or living out a squalid existence on the streets.
The number of Asian children orphaned by the AIDS virus could rise sharply as larger numbers of children survive because of new medical care which prevents infection from infected mothers.
"We are likely to see a disproportionate rise in the number of orphans in this region compared to sub-Saharan Africa," Save the Children HIV adviser Douglas Webb said.
Webb said in South and Southeast Asia three million to four million children under the age of 18, of which some 850,000 were 15 or under, had lost one or both parents because of AIDS.
And he said many AIDS orphans were either put into institutions where care was inadequate or became prostitutes.
"Many of these children will find their way onto the streets where they are very vulnerable to HIV infection," Webb said.
He called for an increased effort in providing community-based care for the affected children.
The fund's report said of the estimated 36.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS world-wide, 1.4 million were children under the age of 15 and about 210,000 were children in South and Southeast Asia.
The report also painted a chilling picture of child neglect.
In India, it said, four million children lived on the street. One study of 1,000 children found that 250 had acquired sexually transmitted diseases within nine months of living rough.
In Cambodia, children as young as four have been trafficked to Thailand, where they live for years working for a pittance which rarely finds it way back to their families. Many who return are discovered to have been raped or forced to sell sex.
In Indonesia, a study of 250 male street children from East Jakarta aged 10 and over found 22 per cent had sex experience, although 85 per cent of them never used condoms. One-third used illicit drugs, 20 per cent sniffed glue and 49 per cent drank alcohol.
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