One of the most alarming -- yet unstudied -- social ramifications of the worldwide HIV pandemic is the large number of children who have become, or will become, orphans. In the U.S. alone, an estimated 130,000 children and adolescents will lose their mothers by the year 2000. These numbers are expected to grow geometrically in the coming decades. While HIV-infected children have received some attention and services, the much larger population of healthy children who are parentless as a result of HIV-related deaths have gone largely unnoticed. This proposal requests funding for a conference that will explore the critical policy and service delivery questions raised by this aspect of the AIDS crisis. The conference will examine analytically other historical instances -- wars, famines, and other epidemics -- which left large numbers of orphans. The conference will assess those social, cultural, and biological forces that shaped the experiences of children in the context of massive familial and community disruption. By examining these historical cases, and the wide variety of social and institutional responses to children without parents, we intend to identify a range of policy options for serving the important health and social service needs of orphans in the contemporary context. The conference will bring together scholars and policy experts as a working group to identify policy options and propose possible solutions. The role of governments, religious institutions, extended families, and philanthropies will be evaluated. The conference will produce recommendations and a book of critical historical essays and policy analyses that will shape the response to orphans of the HIV epidemic in the future.
