The Social Problems of Children in Sub-Saharan Africa

Today, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the HIV/AIDS pandemic is creating millions of AIDS orphans who languish away in orphanages that lack the resources to take care of them. Millions of other children are living on the streets, trying to survive on their own, leaving them vulnerable to unscrupulous individuals who are exploiting them for the sex tourism business, or recruiting them into hazardous labor situations that injure or maim them. Other vulnerable children are abducted into the military as child soldiers and forced to commit horrific crimes that will haunt them forever.The educational system in Sub-Saharan Africa continues to decline as resources dwindle along with education expenditures, and governments spend more money on ammunition than books. As the AIDS epidemic spreads across the continent of Africa, the numbers of professionals such as doctors, nurses, and teachers are dwindling, leaving the educational and medical communities weakened.Meanwhile, the growth and development of Africa continues to stagnate. More and more failed social polices surface from the Western world such as forced austerity measures from the IMF and the World Bank, along with the Structural Adjustment Programs that hinder further growth and prosperity on the continent.The Social Problems of Children in Sub-Saharan Africa identifies and describes the numerous problems that children in Sub-Saharan Africa are facing today. The author has lived in Ghana, West Africa, and has used an ethnographic approach in order to better understand some of the most critical problems concerning children in the poorest region on earth: Sub-Saharan Africa.