ting to HIV. In sub-Saharan Africa there are also many other reasons
for parents of young children to die. Losing a parent has a devastating impact on the life of a child, and has repercussions for their community and their country. There are also other groups of children that are disadvantaged who may be vulnerable, including disabled children, those living in a household headed by an elderly person or a child, those not living with their biological parents and those living in households where adults are sick or may die. The basic human rights of such vulnerable children may be threatened.
In The Gambia it is not un
common for children to lose one or both of their parents before
adulthood. Fathers are often substantially older than their wives, and may die
of natural causes before their children are grown up; there are many other
causes of death for parents of young children. The prevalence of HIV is
relatively low, but rising. An estimated 15000 people are living with HIV in The
Gambia, and an estimated 5000 children are AIDS orphans.The Gambia set up a National Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Taskforce in 2002. This Taskforce commissioned this situational analysis to understand the current situation of orphaned children in The Gambia and to assess current models of care.
This document reviews international literature about OVC, the Gambian literature on children, existing Gambian policies and laws on children and existing Gambian data on children to set the scene for the examination of the new data collected for the situational analysis. The issue of OVC is seen to threaten both individual child development and national development. In The Gambia high levels of vulnerability and poverty have been described in many studies. The Government of The Gambia has developed relevant policies for Social Welfare, Children, Education, Adoption, Youth, AIDS, Nutrition and Inheritance.
Data from the National Censuses and from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS 2000) give useful background information. Census data of 1993 showed that 6.36% of all children below the age of 18 were orphans (had lost mother or father, or both); the MICS data showed that 8% of those aged 0-14 were orphans, while 73% of children were living with both parents. The OVC showed that orphans were significantly more likely to be malnourished that non-orphans.