Blame & Banishment - MÃ©decins du Monde

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Sasha, aged 15 months and HIV-positive, was abandoned at birth. He sits alone in his crib at a state-run baby home. © UNICEF/NYHQ2005-1814/G. Pirozzi
Blame and Banishment: The underground HIV epidemic affecting children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia SECTION I Abandoned into state care… “When still only a small baby, Anna travelled from her home town in the south of Russia to a distant place… It was not a pleasant trip, in particular because her mother wasn’t with her. The journey ended at Anna’s new home: a large imposing building with many windows. Inside, she joined her new brothers and sisters and a different sort of life began for her. That day, Anna was just 14 weeks old. Ten months later she was confirmed as being HIV-positive. She never left her new home and grew accustomed to a life without love, isolated from the outside world… She was afraid of strangers but liked helping the staff take care of the dozens ” of other HIV-positive children who had also been abandoned to a similar fate… Across Eastern Europe, children born to HIV-positive mothers have a much higher risk than others of being abandoned at or soon after birth. Their removal from their mother, their family and community is an expression of both the stigma surrounding the HIV disease and of the multiple hardships that overwhelm many disadvantaged women. Currently, the region has the highest rates of family separation in the world, with approximately 1.3 million children deprived of parental care and isolated from family and community, even though the vast majority still have biological parents. 10,11 The relinquishment of children to institutional care is an established solution for families in distress – a practice that has historic roots and continues to the present day, despite strong evidence of its negative consequences for children’s well-being. The practice is often portrayed as being in the best interests of the child, with pregnant young women who use drugs being convinced that they cannot be good mothers. Relinquishment is in part due to a residual trust placed in these institutions by populations themselves, frontline service providers and policy makers. But it is also due to the lack of support for families under stress and to unfinished reforms in social welfare and protection services. As a result, an increasing number of children in the region have become ‘social orphans’ – children who live in state institutions while their parents are still alive. 7
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“ To live without hope is to ceas
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Blame & Banishment - MÃ©decins du Monde

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