Fact Sheet

Español

• The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as every human being below the age of 18 years.

• There is still no cure or effective vaccine for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

• UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/ AIDS, estimates that there are already over 23 million people worldwide living with HIV, over 40% of whom are women. In some of the worst affected countries, up to 40% of women attending antenatal clinics in urban areas are HIV-infected.

• In 1996 alone, 400,000 children under the age of 15 became infected with HIV, bringing the total number of children in this age group living with the virus to 830,000 at the end of 1996.

• By the end of 1997, a million children under the age of 15 are expected to be living with HIV, over 90% of them in developing countries.

• Since the beginning of the epidemic, according to UNAIDS and WHO estimates, well over 2 million HIV-infected children under the age of 15 have been born to HIV-infected mothers, and hundreds of thousands of children have acquired HIV from blood transfusions or through sex.

• Because HIV infection often progresses quickly to AIDS in children, most of the close to 3 million children under 15 who have been infected since the start of the epidemic have developed AIDS, and most of these have died.

• Of the 1.5 million people who died of AIDS in 1996, 350,000 were children under the age of 15.

• The US Bureau of the Census estimates that by the year 2010, if the spread of HIV is not contained, AIDS may increase infant mortality by as much as 75% and mortality in children under 5 by more than 100% in those regions most affected by the disease.

• UNAIDS estimates that, by mid-1996, 9 million children under 15 had lost their mothers to AIDS. More than 90% of these children live in sub-Saharan African countries.

• Most children orphaned by AIDS are concentrated in those countries most affected by the epidemic. For example, data provided by the US Bureau of the Census and the World Bank indicate that there are 1.2 million Ugandan children under the age of 18 who have lost at least one parent to AIDS. This figure is increasing by an estimated 50,000 children each year.

• According to UNICEF, children orphaned by AIDS are the largest and fastest growing group of children in "difficult circumstances" in Zimbabwe. It is estimated that by the end of 1996, approximately 8% of children under 15 years of age in the country had lost their mothers to AIDS.

• Even children who are neither infected with HIV nor orphaned by AIDS are affected by the socioeconomic fallout from the epidemic in hard-hit communities and countries. An AIDSCAP study estimated that, by the year 2005, Kenya's Gross Domestic product (GDP) will be 14.5% smaller than it otherwise would have been had AIDS never occurred. Per capita income is projected to be reduced by 10%.

• The vulnerability of girls to HIV infection is exacerbated by denial or neglect of their recognized human rights - including gender discrimination - resulting in particular in low access to socio-economic opportunities.

• In many developing countries, some 50% of the population is under the age of 18 years. Directing prevention efforts to children is crucial in minimizing the further spread of the epidemic.

• Adolescents are especially vulnerable to infection through sex or drug injecting.

• Commercial sexual exploitation and domestic sexual abuse of children are contributing risk factors for HIV infection among children.

• Figures reported to the 1996 World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children indicated that worldwide more than 1 million children enter the sex trade every year.

• An unknown number of children worldwide are at risk of sexual abuse by relatives, other members of the child's community or strangers.

• Estimates suggest that there are as many as 100 million children and adolescents in the world who are working or living on the street, often in violent and dangerous situations.

• The physical and mental abuse of children may increase the likelihood of their engaging in risk-taking sexual behavior and thus increase their vulnerability to HIV.