By 2010 sub-Saharan Africa will be home to an estimated 50 million orphaned children, and more than a third will have lost one or both parents to AIDS, according to a biennial report on global orphaning released this week by USAID, UNAIDS and UNICEF. The report, entitled 'Children on the Brink 2004' presents the latest statistics on historical, current and projected numbers of children under the age of 18 who have been orphaned by AIDS and other causes. In just two years, between 2001-2003, the global number of children orphaned due to AIDS has risen from 11.5 million to 15 million - the vast majority of which are in Africa.

Amongst the growing number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northern Uganda are an estimated 50,000 people known as “night commuters” – most of them children, adolescents and women – who flee their homes or IDP camps each night for town centers seeking safety from attack by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army(LRA). These night commuters represent only a small portion of the IDP population, but the situation dramatically illustrates how inadequate protection has led to increasing violence against children and adolescents.

Across Africa and in over 100 impoverished nations worldwide, the most vulnerable children - AIDS orphans, girls and the poor - are denied access to education. The greatest obstacle between these children and a seat in the classroom and in turn their prospect of a better future is ‘the school fees that schools continue to impose'. So says Joanne Carter, Legislative Director of RESULTS, a grassroots advocacy organisation that lobbies the US government and other developed countries for a comprehensive response to the AIDS and poverty crisis in poor nations.