Vito Tola, age five, HIV positive and an orphan who lost her parents to AIDS related illness, tosses in her sleep at the Hope of Children Orphanage in Battambang.

 

Chea Sreylin, age eleven and HIV positive, walks with friends in Krol Kor Village, Phnom Penh. Sreylin was born with AIDS and has lived with her godmother since losing her parents to AIDS related illnesses in 2004

 

But overshadowed by these positive statistics is a generation of Cambodian children who suffer the wrath of AIDS as they are born HIV positive or orphaned by AIDS related illnesses, often both. In 2001 UNAIDS estimated that approximately 55,000 children in Cambodia had lost one or both parents to AIDS related illnesses. By the end of 2006 UNAIDS estimated that this figure had grown to an overwhelming 300,000.