The burgeoning orphan crisis around the world presents the Body of Christ with an opportunity to join God at work on a Kingdom battlefront very close to His heart –- the fields of the fatherless.
God clearly states His love for the “fatherless” and His concern for their plight throughout His Word. God just as clearly calls on us to “defend the cause of the fatherless” and “to look after orphans and widows in their distress.” (1 Peter 5:8; Deuteronomy 10:18; Deuteronomy 24:19-22; Psalm 68:5-6; Psalm 82:3-4; James 1:27)
Today an estimated 16.2 million children are orphaned1 in developing countries around the world — having lost both parents or been abandoned — the vast majority in distressful situations with little hope for a future. When considering children that have lost one of their parents, that number explodes to 143.4 million children.2
"Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." - 1 Peter 5:8
There is no shortage of dark influences seeking to devour these defenseless children – malnutrition, poverty, illiteracy, radical belief systems, human trafficking & sexual exploitation, drugs, gangs, AIDs … hopelessness.
Most orphans are taken in by relatives, unfortunately many find themselves stigmatized and a burden on already impoverished families and subjected to a wide variety of abuses. Those remanded to government institutions live a life of isolation with little human and adult interaction. Many find it more desirable to fend for themselves on the streets.
Traditional residential institutions usually have too few caregivers and are therefore limited in their capacity to provide children the affections, attention, personal identity, and social connections that families and communities can offer.3
The obvious first line of response needed is to care for orphans’ physical needs – food, clothing and shelter. Because of their impoverished and desperate situations, many of these children have never experienced true love and concern which has been overshadowed by the basic need for survival.
The sweet fragrance of Christ’s love that accompanies the provision of their physical needs has an undeniable attractiveness that opens the eyes of their hearts to the love they have never experienced or long forgotten.
Their distress, regardless of their environment, provides an opportunity to share God’s plans to give them a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11) through salvation found in Jesus Christ. Nurturing their physical and spiritual needs go hand-in-hand, and are both critical to establishing a foundation of holistic care.
In most undeveloped areas, education for orphans is a low priority. Even if education is free, their extended families or care providers often can’t afford the school books and materials required. It’s also not unusual in AIDS infected areas that orphans are stigmatized, shunned and not welcome at schools.
Orphans often work out of the necessity to help with the families financial needs. A United Nations study in Ethiopia revealed that orphans made up the vast majority of that country’s child labor, and conditions were robbing them of their childhood:
“In Ethiopia, more than three quarters of the child domestic labourers interviewed in Addis Ababa were orphaned, 80 per cent of them had no right to leave their jobs and many worked more than 11 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no opportunity to play, watch television or listen to the radio.”4
This reality was also captured in a research study in Zambia conducted by an independent British organization:
“One of the most serious consequences of stigma is that it impedes children’s – particularly girls – access to education.
If money is limited, orphans are withdrawn from school first. Girls may be taken in by relatives in exchange for household work, caring for other sick relatives or agricultural labour. These girls in turn may be forced into sex work – which puts them in extreme risk of HIV infection – encouraged by fathers or guardians to earn money for food.”5
Another United Nations report on child labor in Zambia found an alarming percentage of orphans being forced into prostitution:
“Assessments by the International Labour Organization have found that orphaned children are much more likely than nonorphans to be working in commercial agriculture, as street vendors, in domestic service and commercial sex. Of those children working as prostitutes in Zambia, 47 per cent were found to be double orphans, while a further 24 per cent were single orphans.”6
Unfortunately, this situation is repeated in country after country. According to human trafficking research conducted by Geneva Global, “Human beings are bought, sold and coerced into labor, sex and fighting forces in every region of the world. … In South East Asia young children are forced into prostitution, sometimes sold to traffickers by a family member.”7
The Holistic Mission Issue Group at the 2004 Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization reported that, “AIDS is creating widows and orphans at an incredible rate. … We are at the beginning of the pandemic, not the middle nor the end. Africa is only the first wave of an emerging global pandemic. China, India, and Russia – home to almost one-third of the world’s population – have growing HIV prevalence rates and poor prevention efforts that could lead them to the situation that Africa is now in. Many African churches have taken the lead in responding in prevention and care. A few Asian churches are doing the same.” They concluded that our response to this “scourge” can only be met by a holistic mission response from the churches, a Christian worldview that “seamlessly unites the material, psychological, social, cultural, political and spiritual aspects of life, a worldview that unites evangelism, discipleship, social action and the pursuit of justice.”8
Most recently, the East Asia and Pacific Regional Consultation on Children and AIDS – over 200 delegates from governments, civil society, UN agencies and donors focused on mitigating the impact of HIV and AIDS among children and young people – concluded during a March 2006 conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, that “the number of children in East Asia-Pacific region orphaned by AIDS could more than triple in less than a decade if resources aren’t increased for prevention and treatment.”9
Despite the gloomy reality of the darkness that preys on the children of the world, the experts gathered at Lausanne in 2004 stated the real purpose beautifully:
“Today’s youth generation is the largest in human history; they have never known a world without AIDS. On one hand, youth account for half of the world’s infections. On the other hand, youth are the greatest hope for turning the tide against AIDS. … If the evangelical church cares for the sick and dying, comforts the orphan and widow, shares its message of redemption and transformation, disciples its members and works for justice, then the worth and truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ will shine like a light on the hill and the nations will stream toward it.”10
Orphan Statistics from Children on the Brink 2004*
By the end of 2003, there were an estimated 143 million orphans (from all causes) ages 0-17 in 93 developing countries – 16.2 of those children were “double orphans,” having lost both parents.
Asia has the highest number of double orphans, 7.9 million, with Africa next at 7.7 million followed by Latin America/Caribbean at 600,000.
Absolute orphan numbers are much higher in Asia, which has almost four times more children (1.2 billion) than sub-Saharan Africa (350 million). In 2003, despite lower prevalence rates, there were 87.6 million orphans due to all causes in Asia, double sub-Saharan Africa’s 43.4 million.
Even without the impact of HIV/AIDS, sub-Saharan Africa already had the largest proportion of orphaned children. In 2003, 12.3 percent (43 million) of all children in the region were orphans, nearly double the 7.3 percent of children in Asia, and 6.2 percent of children in Latin America and the Caribbean, who were orphans.
In the most affected countries of southern Africa, 60 percent of orphans have lost their mother, compared with 40 percent in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Extended families are caring for more than 90 percent of orphaned children. In southern Africa, 20 percent of households with children are caring for one or more orphans. Orphans are also most likely to be living in female-headed and grandparent households.
Between 1990 and 2003, the number of children orphaned by AIDS increased from less than one million to an estimated 12.6 million. Nine out of 10 children living with HIV/AIDS are African, as are eight of every 10 children who have lost parents to AIDS.
In some countries with large populations (such as China, Indonesia, and Pakistan) the HIV/AIDS epidemic has only recently begun. If epidemics expand, the numbers of children orphaned by AIDS could grow dramatically.
*Children on the Brink uses “orphan” to refer to any child who has lost one or more parents.
FOOTNOTES
1 Hope for the Fatherless uses the term “orphan” for children that have lost both parents. International reports refer to these children as “double orphans.”
2 Children on the Brink: A Joint Report on New Orphan Estimates and a Framework for Action, pp. 26-32, UNAIDS, UNICEF, and USAID, July 2004, http://www.unicef.org/publications/index_22212.html
3 Children on the Brink, p. 19
4 The State of the World’s Children 2005, UNICEF, p. 74, http://www.unicef.org/sowc05/english/fullreport.html, Kifle, A., ‘Ethiopia – Child Domestic Workers in Addis Ababa: A rapid assessment’, International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, International Labour Office, International Labour Organization, Geneva, July 2002.
5 “We Didn’t Apply to Be AIDS Orphans,” Dr. Virginia Bond, ZAMBART Research Study, Panos Features, www.panos.org.uk, July 2003
6 The State of the World’s Children 2005, UNICEF, p. 74, www.unicef.org/sowc05/english/fullreport.html, Musingeh, A.C.S., et al., ‘HIV/AIDS and Child Labour in Zambia: A rapid assessment’, Paper No. 5, International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, International Labour Office, International Labour Organization, Geneva/Lusaka, 2003.
7 “Human Trafficking Solutions,” Geneva Global, 2005, www.genevaglobal.org/human_trafficking
8 “Holistic Mission and AIDS: The Challenge of Our Time to World Evangelization,” Myers, Bryant. L., Holistic Mission Occasional Paper, 2004 Forum for World Evangelization, Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization
9 “Number of children orphaned by AIDS in East Asia-Pacific could triple by 2015,” Associated Press, March 24, 2006, Report from joint consultation organized by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, UNAIDS, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Save the Children, Family Health International, and the Vietnamese Commission for Population, Family and Children.
10 “Holistic Mission and AIDS: The Challenge of Our Time to World Evangelization,” Myers, Bryant. L., Holistic Mission Occasional Paper, 2004 Forum for World Evangelization, Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization