At first glance, Gao Li looks like any other Chinese teenager. But her sad face betrays the truth. She is one of tens of thousands of Aids orphans in Henan province.
Li, 14, is not quite an orphan yet. Her mother, Qi Xiuzhi, died of Aids in December 2000. Her father, Gao Zhongyan, is not expected to live much longer. Both parents got the disease through illegal blood sales in the 1990s.
Li was not the only daughter of the family, but her elder sister was sold to another family before their mother died.
In Tonghu village in Xincai county where Li and her family used to live, selling blood was big business in mid-1990s. The villagers, who knew virtually nothing about Aids, went to unsanitary government-run clinics where their blood was pooled and the plasma extracted. The remaining mixed blood was then pumped back into the donors to prevent anaemia.
Now, the village - like many others in Henan province - has hardly any people left. The adults are either dead, seriously ill, or have moved away. Only the children and their grandparents are left.
Local governments have rejected requests from foreign relief agencies to visit the villages and journalists are barred.