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Welcome to the blog of Connor Boyack, a 20-something husband, web designer, Latter-day Saint, constitutionalist, paleocon, classical liberal, preparedness practitioner, budding philanthropist, and master's student of political economy. I'm from Poway, CA but live in Happy Valley.


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Child-headed Households

Posted by Connor on July 22nd, 2007

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AIDS is tearing apart families in sub-Saharan Africa. As AVERT reports:

An estimated 24.5 million adults and children were living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa at the end of 2005.

During that year, an estimated 2 million people died from AIDS. The epidemic has left behind some 12 million orphaned African children. (via)

The number of OVC (orphaned and vulnerable children) has only risen since then. Every 14 seconds, a new child is orphaned from AIDS.

Middle aged people are affected the most by AIDS, with adults (18-50 years of age) dying left and right, leaving their parents to watch over their children. Grandmothers have become the saviors of sub-Saharan Africa, often caring for multiple sets of children when their parents have died.

But when the grandparents have already passed on, the children are left to fend for themselves. This creates a living situation termed “child-headed households”, where the oldest child becomes the guardian of his/her younger siblings. Sometime the head of house is a teenager, or sometimes the child is no more than six or seven years of age.

Examples of these “families” can be seen here, here, here, here, and here.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World says:

Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.

It is heartbreaking to witness the holocaust of our day and meet these children who are left to fend for themselves, without any parental support, love, or guidance.

In the time it took you to read this blog post, two to four more children were orphaned due to AIDS.

Possibly related posts:

6 comments so far. Care to chime in?

And that’s only half the story. Factor in the 1,000,000 deaths a year from Malaria, plus the vast number of people killed from more mundane things like dyssentary, starvation, etc. and add to that whatever ungodly number of people die each year in the regional, political and religious violence and I have no doubt that you would need to triple your numbers.

The Lord must weep at what is allowed to happen to his children. The deeply sad thing is that with the right resources and efforts these numbers could be dramatically decreased. However, I don’t see that happening in our lifetime. The problems they suffer from and the sheer vastness of number of people affected, compunded by the horrible abuses and immorality of the governments there I think appear overwhelming at best. Without serious external intervention, I honestly don’t see things getting better.

#1 cew-smoke on July 23rd, 2007

It is amazing to me, what these children endure. You can see in the story-telling pictures that these children are suffering, yet have a deep inner strength.

#2 Mark Mathson on July 23rd, 2007

[…] Connor’s Conundrums » Child-headed Households […]

#3 TumbleMark on July 26th, 2007

Whenever I read something like this, I feel like I’ve been hit in the gut. Hard.

#4 Michelle on July 31st, 2007

CHILD HEADED FAMILIES ARE NOT AN ACCEPTION ESPECIALLY FOR AFRICANS WHERE THE TRADITIONAL WAY OF HADLING CHILDRE WHO’SE PARENTS HAD DIED WOULD BE FOR THE CHILDREN TO STAY WITH ONE OF THE FAMILY ELDERS ,WHOEVER THAT IS …IM SURE THEY CANT BE ALL DEAD

#5 Patricia Gumede on August 2nd, 2007

Its sad that our siblings are experiencing such burdens.If only the world would work together as one to ensure the onogoing of their livelihoods.There is need of the action oriented approach ,that is basically acting and changing their lives in a sustainable way.I personally sympathise with these kids and this has prompted m to study the Child headed households inorder to make a contribution that would change their lives forever.

#6 Tendai Garutsa on April 17th, 2008

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