“There can only be more. A couple dies and there’s an orphan. The figures must be higher. It’s mind-boggling. It’s China’s tragedy.”
-Dr. Gao Yaojie in a joint-interview with Chi Heng Foundation
China’s Tragedy
Today, China is a rising superpower, a country experiencing vast economic growth and modernization. Yet a significant portion of the Chinese people are excluded from this spotlight. They are peasant families who live a world apart in isolated villages throughout rural central China.
In the
1990’s, hundreds of thousands of these peasants in central China, in particular the provinces of Henan, Anhui and Hubei contracted HIV when they sold blood to alleviate their poverty. Unbeknownst to them, the blood collecting stations used highly risky procedures, such as plasma pooling and shared needles. As a result, the peasants fell ill by the masses, resulting in infection rates as high as 60% in some villages. Today the epidemic is threatening the entire social and economic infrastructure in the area, destroying lives and disintegrating untold numbers of families. Yet this tragedy often remains a “closed problem”, dismissed or excused as a problem of the remote Chinese countryside.
The Children Orphaned and Impacted by HIV/AIDS in central China
Perhaps the most vulnerable victims
of the blood-selling disaster
are the children in rural central China whose parents are today infected or have died from contracting the virus during the blood-selling disaster. Recent relief efforts by the Chinese government and various organizations have been preoccupied with the medical needs of the adults and the immediate basic needs of their children, which include placing the children in large state-run orphanages. Yet programs to ensure the psychological and future well-being of these children are severely lacking. Little is in place to save the children from being stranded in a lonely and truly uncertain present.
The troubles of these children
According to a survey given to a group of children orphaned and impacted by HIV/AIDS in Anhui by Save the Children UK, the children’s major definitions of vulnerability include:
- Children with low self-confidence and self-esteem and who are emotionally hurt or have a sense of failure
- Children with no friends
- Children who are not good at studying
- Children unable to pay tuition fee for school
- Children without a good teacher
In addition to physical and immediate needs, the children express emotional and psychological needs as well as an early concern for their future and their role in society. The mission of China Memory Book Network is to address the latter needs – making sure that the children thrive in the long term. |
