Honored guests, ladies and gentlement:
We live in an extraordinary time. A disaster potentially unequalled in history threatens human life throughout the entire world. Among its may victims are those least able to protect themselves: the children, children of this beautiful land in which we are assembled, our children.
You have hear other speakers tell you of the horrors, the causes and the effects of acquired immune deficiency syndrome in adults. But I come before you to remind you of those sufferers who are easiest to ignore or forget: the children.
During the last four decades, the inhabitants of Ethiopia have known both natural catastrophe and political turbutlence. Consequences of these natural and manmade problems continue to elevate suffering among the children of Ethiopia. Prolonged shortages of food, medical treatment, and education debilitate our children, depleting their ability to ward off famine, disease, and death.
To be sure, in order to provide and maintain the integrity and unity of human spiritual civilization, we must identify and uphold those universal elements inherent in the human spirit. However, children born into situations of civil strife, economic injustice, and all forms of deception and prejudice are innocent of contributing to the present demise. Despite almost univesal ratification of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, children infected with HIV, those afflicted by the epidemic, and those living in shadows of HIV and AIDS continue to suffer serious discrimination, exploitation, and abuse in most countries: Ethiopia is no different. These are violations of children's rights, arising simply from the real or perceived HIV or AIDS status of the children or members of their families. Often, those children who are alone, making their own decisions, are even more at risk, falling prey to sexual exploitation and drug abuse through, for example, the misfortune of unemployment.
According to data furnished by the United Nations, at the end of 1997 an estimated one million children throughout the world are living with HIV, and possibly 16,000 more are newly infected each day. Perhaps 1,600,000 children under the age of fifteen are living with AIDS. Indeed, in most part of the world. the majority of new infections are among young people between fifteen and twenty-four years old, and many are younger-in some case much younger.
Provisions of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child would require that all children living with HIV or AIDS have access to treatment, counselling, education, recreation, and social support and be protected against any form of discrimination; but these provisions are not being implemented, in part because of the poverty of the nations in which so many of these children are suffering. For example, according to the United States Agency for International Development, Ethiopia,
Each child should have a right to life. We, and our governments, should ensure to the maximum extent possible th survival and development of the child and the right of the child to the highest standard attainable of health. Governments should emphasize provision of primary and preventative health care, public health education, and reduction of infant mortality. We should encourage international cooperation toward these ends, so that even the poorest nations will not be unable to furnish the services which are needed to attain them.
(We must see to it that no child is deprived of access to effective health services. Disabled children-including those with HIV or AIDS-have particular needs and should have the right to special treatment, as well to education, leisure, and recreation. All children should be educated, and it must be the reponsibility of national government to ensure that, at the very least, primary education is both free and compulsory, and that dicipline in school should respect children's dignity. The aim of education must be geared toward developing children's personalities, as well as their mental and physical abilities to the fullest extent possible. Edcuatin should foster respect for parents, cultural identity, language, and values; it should prepare the child for a responsible life in society in a spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, and friendship among all people.)
Globally, since the start of the epidemic in the late 1970s, the number of children under fifteen who have been infected with HIV/AIDS has reached an estiamted 3,800,000 of whom 2,700,000 have already died. Yet those deaths do not define the limits of the catastrophe of AIDS. Many of the dead and infected children contract the disease before or during birth, or through breast feeding, from their infected mothers, many of whom have themselves died. From the beginning of this epidemic to the start of 1998, 8,200,000 children around the world lost their mothers to AIDS; a significant percentage of these orphans live in sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia-perhaps 700,000 now in this country, according to the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, or a total of 2,000,000 since the epidemic began. Demographic indicators show that, if we do not act right now, child morality by 2010 will result in 183.6 deaths per thousand children with AIDS, cntrasted with 137.6 without AIDS. In March of this year, the United States Departement of State spoke of children orphaned by AIDS:
The growing number of children who lose parents to HIV/AIDs will in turn have a profound impact on the societies in which those children live. In some countries, including Ethiopia, children who have lost parents to the epidemic may eventually comprise as much as a third of the population younger than fifteen. This outgrowth of the HIV/AIDS epidemic will create a lost generation, one that is disadvantaged, vulnerable, under-educated, lacking hope and disaffected. Together with the demographic "youth explosion", this could probably result in significant increase in crime, unrest, and even destabilization over the long term. The threat to prospects for economic growth and development in the most sriously affecrd countries, including Ethiopia, is considerable.
What, then, can we do? My own Organization establishes support for clinics in the countryside and obtains and distributes food, clothing, medicine and school supplies for needy Ethiopian children. But the Ethiopian Children's and Orphans' Association is a tiny organization in comparison to the crisis itself. We are undermanned and underarmed in a war against a huge and vcious enemy. And the war, ladies and gentlment, is one that we certainly could lose: in face we shall lose this war unless we make every effort to reach thos children who lack protection against disease and discrimination, and who in may instances still lack even the basic necessities of existence. Horribly enought, millions of children infectd or at risk have been pushe out of our reach by ongoing civil conflicts and political strife, particularly here, in sub-Saharan Africa. Oppressive poverty and lack of domestic or internation donations make the desperate situation almost unimaginably worse. This is the time to reach our people and our future, the children of Ethiopia.
The future of this beautiful land, ladies and gentlement, depends upon what we do now.
Demerew W. Yohannes
With a population of about 57 million people and per capita income of only $120 per year, ... is one of the poorest and most[heavily]populated countries in Africa. At the current growth rate of over three percent per year, Ethiopia's population could exceed 145 million by the year 2025, causing an even lager burden on basic social and medical services.
underfinancing of the health system and a low capacity for management contribute to poor access to basic health services and, ultimately, poorer health status. Fewer than 20% of Ethiopians live within a two-hour walk of a modern health care facility. One-fifth of Ethiopian children die before their 5th birthday[s].
This is a massive social time-bomb disease as the number of children affected by AIDS, including those who are orphans or caring for sick parents continues to escalate. By the year 2000, fifteen ot sixeen million will have lost one or both parents in twenty-three countries heavily affected by HIV/AIDS, largely in sub-Saharan African countries. The loss of a parent has tremendous challenges for a child, who may suffer from depression, malnutrition, lack of immunization or health care, increased demands for labor, loss of schooling, forfeiture of inheritance, forced migration, homelessness, starvation, crime, and increased exposure to HIV infections.
President, Ethiopian Children's and Orphans' Association
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia,
Novemeber 8, 1998
