An Ebola Orphan’s Plea in Africa: ‘Do You Want Me?’

NEW YORK TIMES by Jeffrey Gettleman                                                                  Dec. 14, 2014
PORT LOKO, Sierra Leone --
...After her mother died, the young girl (four years old) stood outside the clinic’s gates looking around with enormous brown eyes. There was no one to pick her up. She was put on the back of a motorbike and taken to a group home, whose bare, dim hallways she now wanders alone. Social workers are trying to find someone to adopt her, and Sweetie Sweetie seems to know she is up for grabs.

On a recent day she asked a visitor: “Do you want me?”

Sweetie Sweetie, center, with other Ebola orphans at a group home in Sierra Leone. She is seen by neighbors as a potential carrier. Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

Ebola has been wretched for children. More than 3,500 have been infected and at least 1,200 have died, United Nations officials estimate. Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, the most-afflicted countries, have shut down schools in an attempt to check the virus, and legions of young people are now being drafted into hard labor by their impoverished parents. ...

But the worst off, by far, are the Ebola orphans. The United Nations Children’s Fund, or Unicef, says that across the region there may be 10,000 of them. Many are stigmatized and shunned by their own communities.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/world/africa/an-ebola-orphans-plea-in-africa-do-you-want-me.html