Click to play videoVijaywada (Andhra Pradesh): Her hands look older than their 15 years, but they have her story to tell.
Lakshmi works as a domestic help in a house in Vijaywada. She had to quit school six years back when her parents died within months of each other. They were both HIV positive.
Lakshmi has now become the head of her family by default. She is now playing the role of breadwinner and caregiver to her old grandmother and two younger siblings.
"I do like to study and would have liked to continue studying but I didn’t have much of a choice. I want to educate my siblings till at least class X. I feel worried but I hope I can afford their education. Its during moments like this that I miss my parents,” says Lakshmi.
There are thousands of children like Lakshmi across Andhra Pradesh, one of the worst affected states on India's HIV AIDS map.
They are a new generation of children orphaned by HIV AIDS who are now heading families, and now very visible in the state.
They are perhaps a frightening reminder that India just like South Africa, is now home to AIDS orphans and child headed families.
Big cities in Vijaywada are home to several such children. In fact, one can find at least two families that are being supported by either a young girl or a young boy in almost every slum colony.
Venkatesh's family is yet another example of a child headed family. Venkatesh lost his father to AIDS five years back.
While his friends go to school, the 12-year-old Venkatesh sells steel utensils in a small market in Vijaywada earning less than 50 rupees a day to support his HIV positive mother and his grandfather.
His mother has given up on even trying to get her son to school and his grandfather is too old to work.
"I feel terrible having to depend on my son. But I am sick and my father-in-law is too old to work so Venkatesh is the only one who can work and support us,” says Venkatesh’s mother.
While there are no exact figures of how many Lakhsmis and Venkateshes there are in Andhra Pradesh and in India, organisations working with these children say that the numbers could well go up to lakhs.
Despite the growing urgency to address the issue of AIDS orphans in India, virtually nothing has been done to help them.
“We had never anticipated the problem of AIDS orphans,” says director general, National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), Sujatha Rao.
However, the fear that is being echoed by many is not what might be done in future for India's HIV AIDS orphans. And it may be a little too late.
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