South Africa AIDS orphans overwhelm social work services, By Scott Baldauf, May 10, 2010, Christian Science Monitor: “Lora Doman sees more human drama, suffering, and courage in a single morning than most South Africans ever see. Ms. Doman is not a nun, or a saint. She is one of South Africa’s 12,000 social workers, a front-line soldier in a battle to hold her country together, one family at a time, several families a day, ensuring that abused, neglected, or orphaned children have a home. It’s a monstrous task in a country where an estimated 5.5 million people – roughly 18 percent of the population – are believed to be infected with the HIV virus.The AIDS epidemic not only kills millions of South Africans, it also orphans children. A United Nations and World Health Organization report last year estimated that as of 2007 there were 1.4 million South African AIDS orphans – a tripling of the number estimated in 2001, and the largest concentration in the world. For homes, many of these AIDS orphans must turn to their extended families – many of whom are already living in poverty – and to overwhelmed orphanages and shelters for survival…”
Tag: South Africa
Child Poverty – South Africa
Poverty hits SA children, February 26, 2010, Times Live: “A new OECD working paper on trends in poverty and income inequality in South Africa has found that more than half of all South Africans (54%) are poor but, among children below 10, as many as two out of three are poor. ‘This implies that among all poor South Africans, one in three is a child,’ said the OECD in the report that was released on Thursday. These high values are based on the national poverty line of 515 rand a month, or about US$ 4 a day, which is used for national policy making. International comparisons of lower-income countries often use the World Bank poverty line which is US$2 a day. Under this lower line, the aggregate poverty rate in South Africa is 30% but if the standard OECD poverty line, which is below half the average income, the poverty rate is 26%…”
Poor Communities and Crime – South Africa
Constant fear and mob rule in South Africa slum, By Barry Bearak, June 29, 2009, New York Times: “The two robbery suspects had already been viciously beaten, their swollen faces stained with rivulets of red. One of them could no longer sit up, and only the need to moan seemed to revive him into consciousness. The other, Moses Tjiwa, occasionally stared into the taunting crowd and muttered, ‘I didn’t do anything’…”