AIDS and Street Children in Zimbabwe

Summary

Street children are children for whom the street (including unoccupied dwellings and wasteland) has become a habitual abode and / resource of livelihood, and who are not adequately protected, supervised or directed by responsible adults. It is usually assumed that the growing number of street children in Southern Africa is a result of the AIDS epidemic, but this assumption has never been tested. Studies of orphans in Zimbabwe generally find that a surprisingly small number become street children, although a small proportion of a very large number may still be a large number. There are other reasons why children may be found living on the streets, especially in the current economic crisis in Zimbabwe. The study was therefore carried out to explore the main causes for the increase in the number of street children in Zimbabwe, and to determine the contribution of AIDS to this phenomenon.