HARARE // Zimbabwe has more than 1.3 million children orphaned by Aids and 50,000 households headed by children below the age of 18 whose parents died of the disease, the 2009 report by the National Aids Council (Nac) has announced.
Nac, a statutory body that co-ordinates the national response to Aids, revealed the statistics during a workshop held in Bulawayo in December to review progress in tackling the pandemic.
Children orphaned by the disease now constitute one quarter of the child population in Zimbabwe.
Left in the care of relatives or even alone, most of them are denied basic rights, the report says, and as a result they are likely to suffer psychological and social problems and are far more likely to be subjected to forced sex in adolescence. These factors in turn contribute to a large number contracting HIV, the Nac warns.
"The erosion of livelihoods and negative coping mechanisms resulting from increasing poverty makes orphans particularly vulnerable," the report says. "Orphaned children are less likely to access health care, attend school and access basic materials."
More than 2,500 people die of Aids every week in Zimbabwe, which has however seen a drop in HIV rates from 15 per cent in 2008 to 11 per cent last year.
Jabulani Xaba, the director of the Khayelitsha Children's Home, an orphanage in Bulawayo, said the high mortality rate because of Aids, failure by the government to provide resources and lukewarm donor support have caused an orphan population too large for the country's orphanages to accommodate.
"We have 89 orphans at our home and of these, three children who could have died if we had not taken them in," he said.
"Our home only attends to extremely desperate children who would have lost both parents and have no one else to look after them.
"The 89 children we have are just a fraction of a huge population in severe distress. Considering that able-bodied adults are struggling to survive due to economic problems, it is not a secret that some orphans are dying silently of hunger and manageable illnesses."
Two lecturers at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare, Neddy Rita Matshalaga and Greg Powell, said in a recent report that Aids had produced a generation of orphans, with severe implications for Zimbabwean society.
"Although donor agencies initially viewed the plight of orphans as a short-term humanitarian disaster, they now acknowledge the long-term social consequences of African children growing up without parental love and guidance," they said in their report, Mass Orphanhood in the Era of HIV/Aids.
"The potential for these children to form a large group of dysfunctional adults, which could further destabilise societies already weakened by Aids, has increased the urgency of finding an effective solution to the orphan crisis."
The orphans suffer psychological trauma, starting with the illness and deaths of their parents, followed by cycles of poverty, malnutrition, stigma, exploitation and, often, sexual abuse.
"Experiencing this without family love and support," the report says, "and without the education needed to understand and rise above their circumstances, these orphans are at risk of developing antisocial behaviour patterns that can endanger community and national development."
According to official figures, 120,000 children in Zimbabwe are HIV positive, about half of whom are orphaned.
The fact that some orphans are also HIV positive - most inherited the disease from their mothers - makes their predicament worse as the children need medication and extra care, said Shepherd Chawira, programmes director of Hope Orphan Support Services, an orphanage in Beatrice, 54km south of Harare.
"In most cases the children do not have access to medication at all because they need to undergo CD4 count [an examination to measure the strength of the immune system], a process which is inaccessible for most people because the centres that provide the service are often located in towns," Mr Chawira said.
"We are talking about children who are being cared for by poor grandmothers, so more often than not, the grandmother does not have the bus fare to have the children undergo the first tests before they can be initiated to anti-retroviral drugs [anti-Aids medication]."
His organisation works in two districts in Mashonaland East province, 30km east of Harare, providing supplementary food aid, clothing and school fees for 1,500 orphans.
"We give this support to them in the context of the extended family system, as opposed to institutions," he said.
"Having children in institutions has many long-term social shortcomings. Because the children are cared for by relatives, they feel they are part of a community. Although they don't have parents, there are many values that the extended family can inculcate in them, which institutions cannot."
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
THE BIO
Ms Al Ameri likes the variety of her job, and the daily environmental challenges she is presented with.
Regular contact with wildlife is the most appealing part of her role at the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi.
She loves to explore new destinations and lives by her motto of being a voice in the world, and not an echo.
She is the youngest of three children, and has a brother and sister.
Her favourite book, Moby Dick by Herman Melville helped inspire her towards a career exploring the natural world.
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3ECompany%20name%3A%20EduPloyment%3Cbr%3EDate%20started%3A%20March%202020%3Cbr%3ECo-Founders%3A%20Mazen%20Omair%20and%20Rana%20Batterjee%3Cbr%3EBase%3A%20Dubai%2C%20UAE%3Cbr%3ESector%3A%20Recruitment%3Cbr%3ESize%3A%2030%20employees%3Cbr%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20Pre-Seed%3Cbr%3EInvestors%3A%20Angel%20investors%20(investment%20amount%20undisclosed)%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Manchester United's summer dealings
In
Victor Lindelof (Benfica) £30.7 million
Romelu Lukaku (Everton) £75 million
Nemanja Matic (Chelsea) £40 million
Out
Zlatan Ibrahimovic Released
Wayne Rooney (Everton) Free transfer
Adnan Januzaj (Real Sociedad) £9.8 million
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
What is graphene?
Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.
It is 200 times more resistant than steel and five times lighter than aluminum.
It conducts electricity better than any other material at room temperature.
It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
The Africa Institute 101
Housed on the same site as the original Africa Hall, which first hosted an Arab-African Symposium in 1976, the newly renovated building will be home to a think tank and postgraduate studies hub (it will offer master’s and PhD programmes). The centre will focus on both the historical and contemporary links between Africa and the Gulf, and will serve as a meeting place for conferences, symposia, lectures, film screenings, plays, musical performances and more. In fact, today it is hosting a symposium – 5-plus-1: Rethinking Abstraction that will look at the six decades of Frank Bowling’s career, as well as those of his contemporaries that invested social, cultural and personal meaning into abstraction.
How Alia's experiment will help humans get to Mars
Alia’s winning experiment examined how genes might change under the stresses caused by being in space, such as cosmic radiation and microgravity.
Her samples were placed in a machine on board the International Space Station. called a miniPCR thermal cycler, which can copy DNA multiple times.
After the samples were examined on return to Earth, scientists were able to successfully detect changes caused by being in space in the way DNA transmits instructions through proteins and other molecules in living organisms.
Although Alia’s samples were taken from nematode worms, the results have much bigger long term applications, especially for human space flight and long term missions, such as to Mars.
It also means that the first DNA experiments using human genomes can now be carried out on the ISS.
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Titanium Escrow profile
Started: December 2016
Founder: Ibrahim Kamalmaz
Based: UAE
Sector: Finance / legal
Size: 3 employees, pre-revenue
Stage: Early stage
Investors: Founder's friends and Family
