Countries in Focus
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China
China, the world's most populous country, is experiencing unprecedented growth and is making great strides towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals. While China's booming economy has lifted millions out of poverty, children and families in poor rural districts continue to lag behind.
Some 650,000 people in China are HIV-positive but it's estimated that one in six infected people do not know their status, making estimates difficult to determine. Awareness about the disease and how it is transmitted remains low in China where nearly 20 per cent of the world's 10- to 24-year-olds, the age group most at risk of contracting the disease, live. Around 76,000 children have lost both parents to AIDS and 370,000 to 570,000 live in affected households. Because their lives are touched by AIDS, these children unfairly face stigma and discrimination.
UNICEF is actively working with the Government of China to provide care and support for children orphaned by AIDS; promote prevention programmes for young people, especially through the Youth AIDS Ambassadors; offer services to pregnant women to prevent transmission to newborns; and provide treatment for HIV-positive children.
The Sky Collapsed: A teenager learning to cope
Read More"It seemed as if the sky collapsed when my parents died of AIDS," says Fen (not her real name), a 14-year-old girl from Guizhou province in China.
Fen and her sister are one of the estimated 570,000 Chinese children whose lives have been affected by AIDS.
China's National Committee for the Care of Children, with support from UNICEF, has been advocating for the rights of these children through special summer camps like Growing Up Together Under the Sunshine.
Working with government, NGOs and civil society, UNICEF is supporting orphaned and vulnerable children like Fen by keeping them in school and with their families whenever possible. UNICEF also supports health services and works to end the stigma associated with AIDS.
Youth Ambassadors Reach Out to Peers
Read MoreAIDS Youth Ambassador Liu Hui works as a nurse at a hospital in Beijing, China and uses her spare time to help ensure that people living with HIV and AIDS in rural areas receive their medications. “My happiness is to help people in need and dedicate myself to providing them with love and care,” she says.
In China, 100 AIDS Youth Ambassadors – all between the ages of 12 and 24 –create and disseminate information about AIDS in their schools and communities. Supported by UNICEF and the China National Committee for the Care of Children, the ambassadors also support HIV-affected children and their families. Communities in six provinces nominated children and young people to become ambassadors, sharing information and fighting stigma and discrimination.
Summer camp aims to help children in China affected by AIDS
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