PNG children orphaned because of AIDS

Updated June 25, 2009 17:16:43

Latest figures show about one in eight children in Papua New Guinea is an orphan, and probably one per cent of those are so-called AIDS orphans. The figures have been compiled by demographers as part of the work of UNAIDS ambassador and Australian National University academic, Satish Chand.

Presenter: Linda Mottram from Canberra
Speakers: Satish Chand, Associate Professor Crawfod School ANU, UNAIDS Ambassador; Charles Lepani, Papua New Guinea's Ambassador to Australia; Margaret Callan, AusAID deputy Director General, PNG

MOTTRAM: In the perennial argument over the question, what is poverty, Sir Michael Somare recently found himself labelled a poverty sceptic when he rejected a claim that people are going hungry on the streets of Port Moresby.

And, true to form, the issue of hunger and poverty divided a policy forum on Papua New Guinea in Canberra this week.

But the ANU's Satish Chand cut through the question on one particular front with new figures estimating the numbers of orphans in the country.

CHAND: And the numbers that I got as of last week, in fact last Thursday are just startling, they're shocking. It shows that anything of the order of one in eight children in Papua New Guinea is an orphan. I mean that is a very very high number.

MOTTRAM: One of Associate Professor Chand's roles is as an ambassador for the joint United Nations program on HIV/AIDS, known as UNAIDS. Its in that capacity he's had the orphan numbers calculated. And they also show that about one per cent of Papua New Guinea's orphans are AIDS orphans .. their parents have died of the disease. And Satish Chand says their position is particularly bad.

CHAND: Normally orphans get looked after by the relatives, by the kin, by the wantoks, the village takes care of the orphans. But in the case of AIDS orphans, these are the guys who really get thrown out.

MOTTRAM: In Melanesia, Satish Chand says, where fathers die of aids .. and men tend to die first in AIDS affected families .. the women often get expelled from the clan because of the stigma attached to the disease. So Satish Chand says there are a large number of AIDS orphans in Melanesia with no social safety net at all.

CHAND: So the one group which I do think are going hungry and there's some evidence to suggest this is true are the AIDS orphans and these are the people who may actually be unable to meet their basic needs. they may actually be below the food poverty line.

MOTTRAM: Papua New Guinea's Ambassador to Australia, Charles Lepani, agreed, though not before delivering a scathing assessment of how some in the aid and development sector label Papua New Guinea.

LEPANI: This condemnatory language, accusative language, a demeaning language on Papua New Guineans who refuse to accept that. Because if you're poor, the poor person in Papua New Guinea as Satish says is the orphan.

MOTTRAM: And Mr Lepani warned the subsistence sector should not be destroyed in the rush to development, describing subsistence sector production and traditional land and family links as Papua New Guinea's welfare safety net.

But the room remained divided on the question of what poverty was. Margaret Callan, assistance director general at AusAID responsible for Papua New Guinea said research consistently showed large numbers of PNG citizens fall below the most common measures of poverty.

CALLAN: The challenge of endemic poverty in rural areas is increasingly joined by one of emerging poverty in previously self-sufficient communities resulting from the general deterioration of services.

MOTTRAM: And internationally its agreed that economic growth is the best way to lift people out of poverty, Ms Callan told the forum. But there remains fault-line between Australia's aid sector and some official Papua New Guinean views on the issue, at a time when the two countries are reviewing their development co-operation treaty and the numbers of orphans, particularly aids orphans, appear to be growing.