Orphan Crisis in Uganda

Klint Ostermann • April 7, 2013

According to a 2012 UNICEF study, there are 2.5 million orphans living in Uganda right now. Exactly how many orphans is that? Below is a picture of Cowboys Stadium.

Cowboys Stadium holds about 80,000 people. To contain all of the orphans in Uganda, you would need over 31 of these stadiums. Of the 2.5 million orphans, 1.2 of them are due to the AIDS crisis in Uganda. What is the cause of the other 1.3 orphans? Many are orphaned due to civil conflict, epidemics, and natural calamities resulting in high adult mortality. Another cause of the orphan crisis in Uganda is high infant mortality. Uganda has an infant mortality rate of 64.2 deaths per 1000 which places it in 27th place in the world. The infant mortality rate is over 10 times the rate of the United States. Because of the high infant mortality rate, many Ugandan parents do not bond or even name their children until they are at least three months old. Without this bond, it is easy for these parents to abandon their babies.

What can be done about this orphan crisis? One aspect is health training to teach young women how to refrain from being infected with HIV. If the adult mortality rate is addressed, the rate of children orphaned will decrease. Another approach to help alleviate this crisis is to address the mother/child bonding. One method that has had positive effects to the orphan crisis in Haiti and one that Vanessa and Fount of Mercy is investigating is to work with expectant mothers to provide prenatal care, develop relationships and then work with the mothers postpartum to help them to bond with their babies.

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