The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies,
working through its member National Societies in virtually every
country in the world, attaches the highest priority to addressing
the vulnerability of children.
The work of our National Societies is well-known, but we believe
there is a need for fresh engagement by significant bodies like
the Commission on Human Rights on finding new ways of meeting
the challenge posed to children and youth living with HIV&AIDS.
We attach special priority, in this context, to the vulnerability
experienced by orphans.
Sub Saharan Africa is home to 24 of the 25 countries with the
world's highest levels of HIV prevalence and this is reflected
in the rapid rise in the number of orphaned children. In the
Southern Africa region, the ten Red Cross Societies have made
support for orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV&AIDS
(OVC) their top priority this year.
The approach they have adopted is guided by the Convention on
the Rights of the Child, the International Federation's own
guidelines on working with OVC, and by the new Southern Africa
regional Red Cross OVC Strategy. The immediate consequence is
activity aimed at the massive scaling up of Red Cross support
to OVC through a holistic approach to ensure that all the needs
of the children are met and that their rights are upheld.
Alongside the scaling up of support, the Red Cross Societies
and the International Federation are working together in collaboration
with communities to provide an environment where children and
their family affected by HIV&AIDS can be supported and protected,
and their rights can be realised. It is our firm view that without
this community involvement there is little prospect that the
programs can produce tangible results.
I would like to share with you some examples to show how important
it is to build up a supporting community for children in need.
• The Zimbabwe Red Cross Society is assisting 52, 841
OVC through their integrated HIV and AIDS programme which includes
home based care, prevention, working with youth, and OVC. This
support includes educational support such as school fees and
uniforms, food and agricultural inputs, clothing , health advice
and HIV and AIDS awareness, psychological support through counselling
and memory work, youth friendly centres, sports and recreation,
and education on child rights.
• The Botswana Red Cross has a mentoring programme for
OVC where caring adult volunteers provide support to individual
children - assisting them in their studies, ensuring they have
time for recreation, and providing a caring adult role model
for the children.
• Care for the carers - the Red Cross is aiming to increase
it support to the carers - this includes the grandparents and
other guardians of the children, it includes the children who
are caring for their sick and dying parents, and it includes
the Red Cross volunteers who work tirelessly with PLWHA and
their families. It is important to note that many of our volunteers
in Southern Africa are living with HIV and AIDS themselves and
the Red Cross is seeking ways to ensure that they have access
to the health care they need.
Our work in this area targets also at children at particular
risk, such as street children. The pandemic has contributed
significantly to the increased numbers of such children, but
they are all too often marginalised and forgotten. In our view
the Commission on Human Rights needs to take urgent action to
defend the human rights of children living on the streets, recognising
that HIV&AIDS presents a huge threat to their health and security.
This is, in our view, also integral to work for the achievement
of the Millennium Development Goals and especially Goal 6 on
HIV&AIDS.
Another point which should be stressed is the absolute importance
of the provision of information and skills to children which
equip them with the ability to understand and deal with the
HIV&AIDS threat themselves.
This is one of the basic underpinnings of Millennium Development
Goal 2 on Universal primary education. It is essential that
governments and civil society work together to protect children
from ignorance and further the ambitions of the priorities contained
in the Declaration adopted by the UN General Assembly's Special
Session on Children in 2002.
We are seeking to deliver a key message on the absolute priority
of this issue in many different fora, and will do so again at
the forthcoming session of the World Health Assembly in Geneva
as well as in regional meetings and other bodies.
It is that the child endures special vulnerability and a special
loss of human rights as a result of the HIV&AIDS pandemic.
There needs to be much more work done on all aspects of the
care and treatment of children. This must include recognition
of the family as the unit which can best provide care, paralleled
by more work on, for example, research and development of paediatric
formulations of antiretroviral (ARV) medicines for children.
Equally, medicines are not enough - there needs to be much more
training provided for medical professionals such as doctors
and nurses, together with volunteers or care-givers involved
with giving children ARV treatment.
We would like to see all the global efforts to fight HIV&AIDS
such as GFATM, Three by Five, PEPFAR etc, working to facilitate
children's access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) and treatment
for opportunistic infections. We would like to see the Commission
on Human Rights and all National Human Rights Institutions take
this priority into their own listings.
At the same time, we would like to see much more work done at
the national level, all over the world, to make special efforts
to address the discrimination and stigma which children living
with HIV&AIDS experience. This needs to include teachers, and
also all in every community who might have an impact on the
issues of dignity and respect which are so important to the
effective protection of human rights.
Some of this can be done through legislation, but it is at heart
a community issue, and one which our experience shows is significantly
advanced through the involvement and participation of children
and young people in planning, implementing and monitoring of
programmes that affect their lives and their future.
The International Federation and its National Society members
throughout the world attach the very highest priority to this
survival issue. Unless it is properly addressed, the cohesion
of entire communities and even nations is threatened.
Our National Society members, as auxiliaries to the public authorities
in the humanitarian field, stand ready to work with governments
and civil society in all countries to bring action forward on
this vital question.
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