Building Protection and Resilience: Synergies for Child Protection Systems and Children Affected by HIV and AIDS

Summary

This paper presents findings from a study commissioned by the Inter Agency Task Team on Children affected by HIV and AIDS. The study aims to better understand the ways in which child protection systems can respond to the needs of children living with and affected by HIV and how those working on issues related to this specific group of children can give greater attention to child protection issues.

This paper presents findings from a global literature search and key informant interviews with leading actors representing the child protection systems strengthening and children and HIV sectors. The findings clearly demonstrate that protection violations negatively impact on HIV outcomes and that HIV and AIDS affects child protection outcomes in many different settings, which justifies the need for specific HIV and child protection interventions to be integrated into each other’s responses. There is evidence on the impacts of protection violations compounded by HIV and AIDS and vice versa, in all settings, including high HIV prevalence settings and concentrated settings across Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, and Latin America. The results also show that children of all different ages and stages of life are affected, as are their caregivers.