AIDS, ORPHANS AND CRIME: Exploring the linkages

Abstract

In the hardest hit regions of the world, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is increasing poverty and inequality and reversing decades of improvements in health, education, and life-expectancy. It is also leaving millions of children orphaned and living in situations of acute vulnerability. Yet, even as the international community mobilises in support of these young people, some researchers and practitioners are linking orphaning and crime, suggesting that growing numbers of impoverished orphans may pose a threat to individual and communal security in some countries. This connection is generally presented as a neat, linear relationship. But is this the case?