HIV/AIDS

As a global epidemic, HIV/AIDS takes its place with the bubonic plague of the Middle Ages for the millions of lives it has claimed. The fact that 25 million have died of AIDS so far but that an estimated 40 million are infected means that the worst is yet to come. In Africa, where its impact is most heavily felt, the unprecedented destruction of HIV/AIDS has meant deteriorating national and household income, the unraveling of the social safety net of the extended family, and the creation of millions of orphans. AIDS-affected children in Africa will number in the tens of millions for years to come.

The engine that drives the epidemic in many parts of the world is sexual violence and subordination of women and girls. The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women concluded in 2001 that "Women's and girls' relative lack of power over their bodies and their sexual lives, which is supported and reinforced by their social and economic inequality, makes them more vulnerable to contracting and living with HIV/AIDS." Moreover, the traditional recourse that orphans and other vulnerable children have had to family-based and community-level support and protection is unraveling in AIDS-affected countries.

We hope, through our work on children and HIV/AIDS, to raise public awareness of the devastating effect this terrible disease has had on children around the world, and to stimulate national and international organizations to take steps to reduce the suffering they are experiencing.

Human Rights Watch Publications on HIV/AIDS and Children's Rights:

Still Making Their Own Rules: Ongoing Impunity for Police Beatings, Rape, and Torture in Papua New Guinea
October 2006

"Life Doesn't Wait": Romania's Failure to Protect and Support Children and Youth Living with HIV
August 2006

What Future?: Street Children in the Democratic Republic of Congo
April 2006

"Making Their Own Rules": Police Beatings, Rape, and Torture of Children in Papua New Guinea
September 2005

Positively Abandoned: Stigma and Discrimination Against HIV-Positive Mothers and Their Children in Russia
June 2005

The Less They Know, the Better: Abstinence-Only HIV/AIDS Programs in Uganda
March 2005

Future Forsaken: Abuses Against Children Affected by HIV/AIDS in India
July 2004

South Africa: Safeguarding Children's Rights to Medical Care
July 27, 2004

Policy Paralysis: A Call for Action on HIV/AIDS-Related Human Rights Abuses Against Women and Girls in Africa
December 2003

Borderline Slavery: Child Trafficking in Togo
April 2003

Suffering in Silence: Human Rights Abuses and HIV Transmission to Girls in Zambia
January 2003

Ignorance Only: HIV/AIDS, Human Rights and Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Programs in the United States: Texas: A Case Study
September 2002

In the Shadow of Death: HIV/AIDS and Children's Rights in Kenya
June 2001

World Report 2002 Section on Children's Rights: HIV/AIDS and Children's Rights