Over 500,000 children in need of special protection

Kenya has more than 500,000 children in need of special protection, and that number is rising steadily as the effects of HIV/AIDS become increasingly evident, according to figures from UNICEF and the Kenyan government. "The figures have multiplied to an unimaginable degree" in recent years, a spokeswoman for the Kenyan Ministry of Home Affairs told IRIN on Wednesday. There is a wide definition of "children in need of special protection", she said, with 15 categories covering virtually all children in difficult circumstances - whether they are street children, involved in child labour, suffering from poverty, family breakdown or the effects of HIV/AIDS. An increasingly large number of Kenya's children are in need of protection because of the direct and indirect effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, a UNICEF spokesman confirmed to IRIN. Not only have many been infected themselves, but the disease has had a negative impact on many thousands of children made homeless, left in poverty or pushed into work. Already, 600,000 children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS, according to UNICEF estimates.