CRIN - Child Rights Information Network
This paper discusses the initiation of a project in central China through the use of children’s research as a foundation for understanding children’s perspectives, problems and issues. This region of China was severely affected by HIV/AIDS through bad practice in blood-buying from poor rural farmers in the mid-1990s. Now many adults are sick and dying, resulting in a large number of children affected by HIV/AIDS and leaving many orphans. The epidemic in an adjacent part of central China has received a great deal of attention. Many children affected and orphaned by AIDS have been placed in institutional care even though their grandparents and other relatives are alive and apparently prepared to care for them. In the area that is the subject of this paper and children’s research, the circumstances of children has been much less noticed. In order to develop a project in the area, Save the Children promoted rights-based approaches, focusing on the best interests of children, and looking at institutional care as a last resort. To initiate the project, following some basic research with adults, a group of children mostly affected by HIV/AIDS were recruited through local partners (local government). They discussed their issues, developed an interview schedule and conducted research. The preliminary findings of the project are reported in this May 2004 paper, along with an outline of the proposed multi-sectoral and multi-agency intervention. Their main issues included access to education and pressures to study, health problems in their family, uncertainty over their future, and intre-family tensions and problems. There was also major problems of stigma and discrimination. A report of children’s research (A Strange Illness) and a book of their photographs and stories is to be issued in mid-2005, including how the participatory processes provided psycho-social support and promoted resilience.
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