Orphaned by Genocide and AIDS, a generation poor and depressed

Donald McNeil at the New York Times reports earlier today about an alarming trend of depression among teenage orphans in Rwanda.

Rwanda, a country that suffered 100 days of tribal genocide in 1994 and has also been hit hard by the AIDS epidemic, is believed to have the highest percentage of orphans in the world.

… More than half — 53 percent — met the criteria for depression on a psychiatric screening scale.

… Seventy-six percent said their community rejected orphans; only 26 percent said they had a close friend. About 40 percent said life was meaningless or that they had lost faith in God since their parents died.

Horrors do not stop at the end of a genocide. Older orphans have younger siblings to look after. They grow up and have children of their own. Children of the next generation being raised by depressed parents suffer not just emotionally but in actual structure and function of their developing brain. The impact may be for life.

Rebuilding the infrastructure and securing a stable government post-conflict, with all the daunting challenges associated, unfortunately, are the easy tasks by comparison. Not only do we not have a plan for mass healing within traumatized populations, we are still in denial that the need exists and contributes to escalating and perpetuating cycles of violence. This will continue as long as we insist on looking the other way.

Read the complete article here.