Protecting Childhood In The Aids Pandemic

Protecting Childhood in the AIDS Pandemic provides lessons from experts around the world on how to transform the outcomes of children affected by HIV/AIDS. It examines which public policies and programs best meet the full range of children's needs, from medical care to social support and from infancy to adolescence.

AIDS is threatening children as never before. Millions of them are missing their childhood, medicines, education, information and a host of other essentials due to the disease. Yet they are often overlooked in AIDS programmes, policies and budgets. The Unite for Children. Unite against AIDS Campaign, a global effort by UNICEF, UNAIDS and a multiplicity of other partners, aims to accelerate action to help those at risk of HIV infection, and those already infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Through four focus areas - prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, providing paediatric treatment, preventing infection among adolescents and young people, and protecting and supporting children affected by AIDS, the Campaign aims to ensure that this is the last generation of children that bears the burden of AIDS.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa has defined the childhoods of an entire generation. Over the past twenty years, international NGOs and charities have devoted immense attention to the millions of African children orphaned by the disease. But in Crying for Our Elders, anthropologist Kristen E. Cheney argues that these humanitarian groups have misread the ‘orphan crisis’. She explains how the global humanitarian focus on orphanhood often elides the social and political circumstances that actually present the greatest adversity to vulnerable children—in effect deepening the crisis and thereby affecting children’s lives as irrevocably as HIV/AIDS itself. Through ethnographic fieldwork and collaborative research with children in Uganda, Cheney traces how the “best interest” principle that governs children’s’ rights can stigmatize orphans and leave children in the post-antiretroviral era even more vulnerable to exploitation. She details the dramatic effects this has on traditional family support and child protection and stresses child empowerment over pity. Crying for Our Elders advances current discussions on humanitarianism, children’s studies, orphanhood, and kinship. By exploring the unique experience of AIDS orphanhood through the eyes of children, caregivers, and policymakers, Cheney shows that despite the extreme challenges of growing up in the era of HIV/AIDS, the post-ARV generation still holds out hope for the future.

An insightful study on children orphaned as a result of the AIDS epidemic with a Foreword by Desmond Tutu.

Social protection is an increasingly important part of the social policy dialogue in Africa, and yet because of its relatively new place in a rapidly evolving agenda, evidence on critical design choices such as targeting, and on impacts of social protection interventions, is mostly limited to case studies or small, unrepresentative surveys. This impressive collection makes a major contribution to building the evidence base, drawing on rigorous analysis of social protection programmes in several African countries, as well as original research and thinking on key topical issues in the social protection discourse. Social Protection for Africa’s Children is divided into four parts. The first presents economic and human-rights based right arguments for social protection as an integral part of the social policy menu in Africa. This is followed by a part on targeting, which highlights some of the key policy trade-offs faced when deciding between alternative target groups. The third part presents rigorous quantitative evidence on the impact of social cash transfers on children from programmes in South Africa, Malawi and Ethiopia and the final part addresses a set of issues related to social justice and human rights. This book significantly advances existing knowledge about social protection for children in Africa, both conceptually and empirically. It makes a strong case for social protection interventions that address the short term (amelioration) and long term (structural) needs of children, and shows that programming in this sector for children is both feasible and achievable. Policy makers and practitioners in this sector will have, in this book, the theoretical and empirical evidence necessary to advance social protection for Africa’s children in the decades to come. Furthermore, this book should be an essential resource to postgraduates and students focussing on development economics in Africa.

Historically, the fields of public health and human rights have remained largely separate. The AIDS pandemic, however, made it clear that a complex relationship exists between the two fields. Women and children have proven to be extremely vulnerable to infection with HIV due to their inability to protect themselves in intimate relationships, their sexual exploitation, and their lack of economic and educational alternatives. On the other hand, coercive government policies aimed at controlling the AIDS pandemic often infringe on the rights of individuals known or suspected of having AIDS, and decrease the effectiveness of public health measures. Protecting and promoting human rights is becoming one of the key means of preserving the health of individuals and populations.; A penetrating analysis of the close relationship between public health and human rights, this book makes a compelling case for synergy between the two fields. Using the AIDS pandemic as a lens, the authors demonstrate that human health cannot be maintained without respect for the dignity and rights of persons, and that human rights cannot be deemed adequate and comprehensive without ensuring the health of individuals and populations. In the course of their analysis, Gostin and Lazzarini tackle some of the most vexing issues of our time, including the universality of human rights and the counter-claims of cultural relativity. Taking a cue from environmental impact assessments, they propose a human rights impact assessment for examining health policies. Such a tool will be invaluable for evaluating real-world public health problems and is bound to become essential for teaching human rights in schools of public health, medicine, government, and law.; The volume critically examines such issues as HIV testing, screening, partner notification, isolation, quarantine, and criminalization of persons with HIV/AIDS, all within the framework of international human rights law. The authors evaluate the public health effects of a wide range of AIDS policies in developed as well as developing countries. The role of women in society receives special emphasis. Finally, the book presents three case histories that are important in the HIV/AIDS pandemic: discrimination and the transmission of HIV and tuberculosis in an occupational health care setting; breast feeding in the least developed countries; and confidentiality and the right of sexual partners to know of potential exposure to HIV. The cases challenge readers with some of the complex questions facing policy-makers, scientists, and public health professionals, and exemplify a method for analysing these problems from a human rights perspective. Gostin and Lazzarini have written a book that will be a valuable addition to the libraries of public health teachers and practitioners, legal scholars, bioethicists, policy makers, and public rights activists.