THE OUT COME OF HIV/ AIDS IN AFRICA Children and young people whose parents have become infected with AIDS virus begin to suffer even before a parent or caregiver has died, the study goes on to say. Since children are unable to earn the same income as their parents, household income plummets. As a result, there is little money for food, clothing, medicine or other basic necessities. Education is interrupted and many children are forced to drop out to either care for a dying parent or go to work to earn money for others who may be too young. Children become depressed and feel alienated from their peers as well as from their families.
	Young boys and girls who are having to carry the burden of caring for their entire families eat less and sell whatever they can -- even if that includes themselves.
"Boys and girls who have been orphaned by AIDS are also stigmatized," explains Missionary of Africa,"They are known as children whose parents have died from socially embarrassing disease. Besides having had to witness their parents suffering and death, they are now poorer and less healthy than non-orphaned children. They will have a hard time focusing on their education and on life in general. They have been traumatized in ways that few of us will ever be able to understand. And because they are uneducated, they will be subjected to the worst forms of child labor and abuse."