CLUSTER FOSTER CARE: A PANACEA FOR THE CARE OF CHILDREN IN THE ERA OF HIV/AIDS OR AN MCQ?

Abstract

The ravages wrought by HIV/AIDS on child-care arrangements in the African context are welldocumented (Richter & Sherr, 2009; Sloth-Nielsen & Mezmur, 2008; Tsegaye, 2007; sourcescited there). Notably, these constitute the breakdown of traditional kinship structures whichwould ordinarily have accommodated orphans and other vulnerable children, a decrease in thecapacity of existing extended family structures to care for the numbers of children requiringalternative care, and the emergence of child-headed households. The topic of child-headedhouseholds, too, has emerged as a key concept in international child rights law (Couzens &Zaal, 2009; Sloth-Nielsen, 2004; Sloth-Nielsen in Skelton & Davel, 2010; UN Committee onthe Rights of the Child (UNCROC), General Comment No. 3 on HIV/AIDS and the rights ofthe child, 2003), and this phenomenon has been directly related to the onset of the pandemic.