Report calls for HIV-sensitive national social protection mechanisms

Friday, 26 August 2011

H.E. Dr. Tia Phalla, Vice Chair of the National AIDS Authority, gives a speech on the report of Socioeconomic Impact of HIV at the Household Level in Cambodia (UNDP/Eng Sok)

Phnom Penh - The United Nations and the Cambodian government have jointly released a new study on the socioeconomic impact of HIV at the household level, stressing the need to ramp up HIV-sensitive social protection programmes to prevent affected families from falling deeper into poverty.

Vocational training and small loans to start up businesses,combined with HIV-sensitive health insurance mechanisms, are crucial for assisting vulnerable households to withstand economic shock, said the report titled “Socioeconomic Impact of HIV at the Household Level in Cambodia.”

It was launchedon Thursday 25 August. Produced by the National AIDS Authority (NAA) and the United Nations in Cambodia, the report was the largest and most comprehensive study ever conducted on the socioeconomic impact of HIV in Cambodia.

“The findings in the report are very important. Through them, we are able to better understand the situation of the families that are affected by HIV,” Dr. Tia Phalla, Vice Chair of the NAA, said during the launch of the report.

A total of 4,172 households - 2,623 HIV-affected and 1,549 non-affected households – were surveyed.

Although Cambodia has made remarkable progress in halting and reversing the HIV epidemic over the past decade, the data collected showed HIV continued to have profound impactS on households. Those impacts included decreased income for people living with HIV and care-givers, food insecurity and child labour among HIV-affected households. Some of the highlights are:

Twenty-seven percent of people living with HIV reported they lost their job (or other source of income) since being diagnosed with HIV. For those who kept their job, income levels were 47 percent lower than before diagnosis. In general, HIV-affected households earned 25 percent per capita less than non-affected households.
Eighteen percentof care-givers reported they left their jobs in order to assume care-giving duties. Those who retained their employment saw a 50 percent reduction in income.
Sixty-five percentof HIV-affected households had at least one loan, compared with 53 percent of non-affected households. HIV-affected households were more likely to have sourced their loan from a moneylender (26 versus 21 percent) and to have paid higher interest rates (5.4 versus 4.3 percent).
Fifty-one percentof HIV-affected households reported being hungry and not having enough food to eat, compared to 35 percent of non-affected households.
Children in HIV-affected households were more likely to have a job than those in non-effected households. Twice as many girls in HIV-affected households worked as girls in non-affected households (10 versus 5 percent).

Participants listen to the speakers during the event.
(UNDP/Eng Sok)

“Such findings underscore the importance of scaling up HIV-sensitive social protection programs and ensuring poverty-reduction interventions reach the poorest and most vulnerable members of society,” UN Resident Coordinator Douglas Broderick said at the launch.

According to the report, enrolment levels among children of HIV-affected and non-affected households were statistically equal (86 and 85 percent respectively). However, HIV-households were more likely to state that children were not enrolled due to financial reasons (21 versus 15 percent). Children (aged 5-9 years) in HIV-affected households were more likely to have missed more than 10 days of school in the previous year than children in non-affected households (15 versus 8 percent). Girls in HIV-affected households were 30 percent more likely to have repeated a grade.

Stigma and discrimination emerged as key issues, particularly among women. Twenty-three percent of women reported experiencing verbal abuse in the previous year as a result of their HIV status (compared with 16 percent of men), while 7 percent reported experiencing physical threats or abuse (compared with 4 percent of men). Psychosocial impacts were also significant. Sixty-five percent of PLHIV reported low self-esteem, 49 percent reported feeling ashamed of their status, 47 percent felt they should be punished, and 16 percent reported having suicidal thoughts in the previous year.

Dr. Tia Phalla of the National AIDS Authority said the report showed that the weight of the HIV epidemic “falls heavily on women” within HIV-affected households.

He said, in addition to the health care and food supplement schemes that are already in place, the government is working to introduce more systematic interventions to help HIV-affected households.

“The ability to generate daily income to support their families, to live with dignity, to be able to send their children to school, to be free of debt and of discrimination – these are the most important issues we have to address for them,” he said.