United Press International - Tuesday, 26 June 2001
Richard Sale

Speaking at a special U.N. panel discussion called "Orphans and Vulnerable Children" during the U.N. session on HIV/AIDS, Mark Stirling, UNICEF's principal adviser for HIV/AIDS, said: "What is needed is a series of statements and commitments to ensure that the rights of children are protected."

UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and singer Harry Belafonte earned audience applause when he said "poverty is the one consistent ally of AIDS."

Belafonte warned against stigma and misinformation. "When I first heard about the disease, it was a disease of black men, black gay men," he said, adding that this "bit of disastrous misinformation stayed in place" until white movie superstar Rock Hudson died from the disease.

U.N. documents said the impact of HIV/AIDS is seen most dramatically in the rapidly increasing numbers of orphaned children: over 30 million orphaned by AIDS, with 10 million likely to die by the end of the decade, according to UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy.

Bellamy also remarked about the increasing number of children born with HIV.

Nongovernment organizations, governments and companies need "to expend efforts" to increase the access of children to effective treatment and drugs, she said.

According to U.N. documents, the social costs of the AIDS epidemic on children are not only enormous, but "long term," as the large number of orphans is placing "extreme stress" on the "already overburdened family and community safety nets."

Targeting ignorance and stigmas are also important goals, said panel members. Farai Mahaso, from Zimbabwe, told of how his AIDS-stricken mother "went public" with her HIV status.

After Mahaso's mother returned from the United Kingdom, where she went for treatment, her village was soon spreading rumors that she had gone there to "smuggle the disease into the country."

She died in 1998, just five days after urging her son to attend an AIDS conference in Switzerland. In his late 20s, he has since become an AIDS activist.

Another panelist, Geena Gonzalez, 27, from the Philippines, told the audience she has been HIV-positive for six years, after contracting the disease as a sex worker. For her, she said, "It's not just a matter of planning and budgets, but of learning to live with HIV."

Gonzalez is close to her son and her mother, and said, "I have to do something concrete for them." She said she thinks it best that the victims be cared for "by their own loved ones" and that the most important knowledge to convey to children is how the disease is caught and how to prevent it.

Abiola Tilley-Gyado, a Nigerian who is a health adviser for Plan International, a child-focused, nonprofit development organization, said "community-driven, family-driven and child-centered" solutions are the most effective.

The biggest challenge, Tilley-Gyado said, is getting the resources from governments and companies to the community where they are needed: "Resources only crawl to the community," she said, yet "most of the activities that best support victims are done by communities."
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