HARARE, Nov 19, 2006 (AFP) - Zimbabwe has the highest number of orphans in the world in relation to its population, mainly due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic blighting the economically ravaged country, a UN official said Sunday.
"Zimbabwe has the highest number of orphans per capita in the world," James Elder, a spokesman for the UN Children's Fund UNICEF told AFP.
"Most of these cases are due to HIV and AIDS," he said.
Zimbabwe's HIV infection rates are currently at 20.1 percent, down from 24.6 percent two years ago.
At least 3,000 people die every week from AIDS-related illnesses in the country of some 12 million people, which is grappling with four-digit inflation, huge shortages of food and fuel, and spiralling unemployment and poverty.
According to the latest UN report, southern Africa is home to 14.9 million people living with AIDS, or 38 percent of the worldwide total of 38.6 million people at the end of 2005.
The country's ailing health sector has meanwhile suffered a gigantic blow with more than half of key medical professionals seeking jobs overseas, according to a report in a state-run weekly earlier this year.
"The economic crisis makes it much harder to look after these orphans, whereby 90 percent of these orphans are cared for by extended families," UNICEF's Elder said.
"The (economic) crisis makes it harder to provide for basic services which children need, such as education, nutrition and health care."
Meanwhile, an alliance of local child rights group Sunday expressed concern on the growing incidence of child abuse.
The Child Protection Working Group (CPWG) said there were 8,600 cases of child abuse in Zimbabwe last year.
"That is 24 every day, or one every hour," the CPWG said in a statement. "More than half of all cases reported involve sexual abuse of children."
The statement said the rise in child abuse could in part be attributed to prevalent myths such as the belief that AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases could be cured by having sex with a virgin.
"This is the most repulsive of myths," Betty Makoni, director of Girl Child Network, one of the members of CPWG, said.
"The time has come for all Zimbabweans to speak out and act against the abuse of country's children."
During the first nine months of this year, Childline, another rights group, reported 34,000 calls, "or more than five every hour, on children's issues."
Childline said in a statement that 70 percent of the calls were related to child abuse.
Rachel Tongoona, an official with the Girl Child Network, meanwhile expressed concern on judicial delays in dealing with child abuse cases.
"Some cases take two years to start and at times the child ends up giving conflicting information in court and the case is dismissed," she told AFP.
"Most of the cases we handle -- 93 percent relate to the girl child and seven percent for the boy child. There are also cases of sodomy reported."
UNICEF's representative in Zimbabwe Festo Kavishe said in a statement that community leaders should help stop child abuse.
"Fears of reprisal and families' willingness to reach settlements deepen a culture of silence and enable the problem to fester undetected and unreported. For the sake of Zimbabwe, this cannot simply continue."
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