JOHANNESBURG, July 7 (AFP) - At 14, Sthandiwe already knows a lot about AIDS: how it killed her mother three years ago and might now rob her of the opportunity to watch the World Cup in 2010, and how people have turned their backs on AIDS orphans like her.
"It's like some kind of a secret," says Sthandiwe, whose big dark eyes peer out, casting a serious glance that briefly shifts to a smile.
"The people, when they know you have HIV-AIDS, they start saying bad stuff about you, because they don't accept the people with HIV-AIDS," says the young girl who found out about two years ago that she also had HIV.
Sthandiwe lives in the Nkosi Haven in central Johannesburg, founded in 1999 by a woman who adopted Nkosi Johnson, a boy who died of AIDS at the age of 12, becoming a tragic symbol of the pandemic ravaging South Africa.
The number of AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa has shot up from 9.6 million in 2001 to 12.1 million in 2003, according to the latest UN AIDS report.
Sthandiwe, who has been on anti-retroviral drugs for about a month, does not mince her words when asked about her opinion of the South African government's response to the pandemic.
"They help a little bit but not enough," she says.
She loves reading "any books but not love books," deeply admires anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela, and loves football but concedes that "maybe I won't be alive" when her country hosts the World Cup in 2010.
The aim of Nkosi's Haven is to provide shelter to poor HIV-positive mothers and their children as well as AIDS orphans, to try to end the stigma and discrimination faced by them and prepare mothers to the possibility of their children being hit by the disease.
It is home to 13 mothers and 46 children of whom 22 are orphans. Half of the eight HIV-positive children were victims of sexual abuse.
Emmelinah Sindane, 42, who contracted HIV when she was raped in December 1999 in Johannesburg's crime-prone city centre, proudly proclaims that none of her three children have HIV.
The youngest, aged a year-and-a-half, escaped HIV as Sindane was on anti-AIDS treament in the final months of her pregnancy.
Sindane, who has also been a foster mother to two orphans -- one of whom is HIV positive -- said one of the blessings of living at the centre was coming to terms with her condition and talking about it without fear.
"My family does not like to talk about it but I don't care," she says. "For me, it's not a secret any more, I am not scared to stand in front of people."
When her health permits, Sindane -- originally from the eastern province of Mpumalanga -- trains for marathon races. She said she thought anti-retroviral drugs were a boon.
"I think it really helps. I saw it was helpful for others," says the 42-year-old.
Gail Johnson, the moving force behind Nkosi's Haven, said AIDS orphans left to their own devices in poor townships were extremely vulnerable in terms of security, sanitation and sexual abuse.
"Child-headed households are 100 percent vulnerable," she says, adding that in most cases, the orphans had stayed with their parents until the end.
"They possibly nursed their parents to death. They have seen the degradation. They have had to keep quiet about it," she adds.
The sheer numbers of children trying to rebuild their lives after their parents succumbed to AIDS is overwhelming in Africa.
"Children orphaned by AIDS are found in almost every country of the world. In some countries, there are only a few hundred or a few thousand. In Africa, there are millions," the UNAIDS report said.
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