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About four years ago, Hei Mo's husband learned that he was HIV positive following a blood test at Jiudu Township Health Clinic of Butuo County. Her husband was a heroin user and probably contracted the virus by using an unsterilized needle. He also passed the virus to Hei Mo.

"He died two years ago so I don't know what was on his mind at the time. For me, I feel despair because I have difficulty to work; I was sick and on the verge of dying. I am very worried about my kids because no one will take care of them after my death," said Hei Mo, aged 30, a Yi ethnic minority. Her two sons, aged 9 and 7, are HIV free.

Though the village doctor told her again and again that everyday contact would not pass the virus to her children, as a mother, she is worried. She will not share meals with her children.

"After I found out that I was positive, I stopped kissing and hugging them.” She said. When the children want to cuddle with their mother, she won't allow it. “My heart is aching".

When Hei Mo works in the fields, she often feels fatigue and headache. The annual family income of under RMB 2,000 (about US$305) comes from the sale of potatoes and corn – the only two crops that grow in the mountainous area, and the only staple food for her family.

"The house is dilapidated. Sometimes I cannot even afford a small bag of salt. On the worst days, we run out of food. I am so hungry that I am unable to work. On wintry days, I don't even have socks to wear." Hei Mo said.

But with family visits and support from the Child Welfare Model Project, launched by UNICEF and the Ministry of Civil Affairs in May 2010, she has regained hope. Extremely poor families in this community had been falling in between the cracks, unable to access various forms of social assistance available to them.

Thanks to a survey conducted by the programme, each of the 8,200 children in the ten project villages of Butuo County now has their own individual file, listing their living conditions and vulnerability. The disaggregated data makes the children's needs more visible to the Government. Histories are collected on children affected by HIV, orphans, children in poverty, children with disabilities, out of school children, children without birth registration and others. In each village, there is a Child Welfare Director who provides assistance to the vulnerable children and their families and gets more support and resources for them from government agencies. 

"I didn't know how to prevent the children from contracting the virus from me. The child welfare director of our village visited my home and taught me how to do that." Said Hei Mo.

Wang Yongzhen, the Village Child Welfare Director often visits the family to learn about their situation. She provides children's clothes, new beds and sheets, bread and milk to the family and others who are in extreme difficulties. Because of the UNICEF project, various social service schemes are better coordinated. As a result the local officials are starting to tackle the poverty in an integrated way. With Wang's facilitation, Hei Mo now is able to receive free medicine from the health clinic and household subsidies from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

"With the help from all sides, I feel much better now." She said. "I hope the children will become self-sufficient and that I will live as long as possible to take care of them. If one day I suddenly leave, I hope the Government can take care of them."

The spread of HIV

When Hei Mo's husband died, no one in the village dared to light up the bonfires for cremation – the Yi ethnic traditional funeral rite – for fear of getting infected. It was 70-year-old village head Heiri Bire who finally helped complete the funeral. He has been in charge of the village since 1991. At the time, drugs had not invaded the village.

In 1995，Liangshan Prefecture of Sichuan Province reported the first case of HIV infection among injecting drug users coming home from neighbouring Yunnan Province. Today, HIV/AIDS is spreading from high-risk drug users to the general population through sex and mother-to-baby transmission. The Prefecture reports a high HIV incidence rate of around 8 percent among the general population. In the worst affected counties of Butuo, Zhaojue, and Jinyang, slogans warning against drugs and HIV/AIDS cover the walls of houses by the roads.

The area is located on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in Southwestern China at an average altitude of 2,000 meters above sea level. Tucked deep in the mountains, it is on the drug smuggling route from the Golden Triangle to inland China and one of the poorest districts in China.

More than half of the rural populations in Butuo County live under the national poverty level of 1,196 yuan ($178) per person per year. Official statistics show that in 2009, only 70% of the enrolled primary school students finished their study in the Prefecture, compared to the national average of over 99%; the hospital delivery rate stood at 44.4%, compared to the national average of 96.3%.

The prevalence of drugs and HIV/AIDS hits the children especially hard. According to Ms Luo, Deputy Director of Butuo County Bureau of Civil Affairs, more than 300 children have lost both parents and about 10,000 children have lost one parent to AIDS, out of a total child population of around 40,000. In the worst-affected areas, the roadside slogans read “Forbid using special groups of people to smuggle drugs”. Local police say the “special groups of people” refer to children and women.

According to the Yi ethnic custom, when the husband dies, and the wife remarries, she is not allowed to take the children with her, which means the children are left without parental care. If there are no grandparents to take care of them, they have to face the world alone.

"My heart is cold and I do cry sometimes. What to do with these children? I feel despair when thinking of this." Village Head Heibi Rire said. "If the virus continues to spread at the current speed, our village won't exist anymore."

It is still hard to imagine what kind of future awaits children of Butuo County. Remoteness, poverty, drug abuse and HIV/AIDS are constant problems. But strenuous efforts are now being made to break the age-old cycle of poverty by making sure that all basic services for children are coordinated and managed in a comprehensive way. 

With a sad look on his face and a straight back, the old man, wearing a traditional blue Yi woolen cloak, stood at the entrance of the village like a white poplar, trying to guard the village his people have been living in for generations.

Note: To protect privacy, all of the HIV-positive people and children's name have been changed.

by Xu Xin