Lending a hand to the land of a million orphans

[An Op-Ed I wrote for a Public Health Course]

Patricia was 16 when her mother died, she stopped school, was sexually abused and forced to keep quiet about all of it. She is another name to the silent suffering experienced by the one million other orphans whose parents died from the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Most of Zambia’s orphans are collateral damage of the epidemic, and we grapple with the staggering number of adolescents left behind. It is time to protect girls from the dangers that claimed the lives of their parents in the first place.

Since the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, adolescents suffered some of the hardest blows. Due to the trauma of sickness and death of the parents, the burden of caring for younger siblings, and the increased time spent on household chores, many adolescents are forced to drop out of school and prematurely take on adult roles². Adolescent girls are denied the chance to begin a normal life before they are even old enough to understand it.

[…]

School was built to be a protective environment for young people. Everybody needs someone to share their feelings, thoughts, and fears. For an orphan, school may be particularly important in maintaining order, routine and access to caring adults as well as education³. Cash transfer programs have helped adolescents make smoother and safer transitions to adulthood in many LMIC, a luxury too many of us take for granted. With trusted confidants, adolescent girls can freely discuss issues concerning HIV/AIDS and its impact on education in a context where such ‘taboo’ issues would be confronted with silence or denial⁴. Like the same way it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a school to raise an adolescent orphan.

Observable. Simple. Compatible. If carefully designed and evaluated, the economic incentive of a conditional cash transfer could help reduce stigma and promote safe sexual behaviors.

Robbing a girl of her health and education is a basic violation of human rights. Living a life free of the fear of early sexual debut, unprotected sex or early marriage is a freedom everyone should have. It is time to stop overlooking the elephant in the room. It is time to break the vicious cycle that HIV/AIDS has inflicted on Zambia. It is time to lend a hand to the land of a million orphans.