HE IS known as the Miracle Child, an 11-month-old baby who was declared HIV-positive at birth but has since been given the all-clear by doctors.

Whether it was an act of God or a clinical misdiagnosis that was put right, no one will ever never know. What is beyond dispute is that Gabriel Yusuf’s certificate of health is a passport to a better life.

“He is my miracle child,” says Sister Luthgarder, a Franciscan nun who cares for him at the Kidane Meheret Children’s Home.

Gabriel has joined the tiny number of children born to mothers with Aids who revert to HIV negative. He was found abandoned on the streets of Addis Ababa and taken into care. He is now being offered for adoption, and there is a good chance that he will be chosen by a family from the United States or Germany, joining the swelling ranks of one of Ethiopia’s fastest growing exports: babies.

Ethiopia, ravaged by Aids and grinding poverty, has a population of 75 million, which is growing at a rate of two million a year. More than half live on less than 50p a day. There are now about five million orphans, and the number is increasing by the day.

The country spends more on looking after abandoned and orphaned children than it does on education and health, and the bill continues to rise.

Organisations such as Unicef, the United Nations’ children’s agency, are concerned that the Ethiopian Government does not have the staff or resources to monitor orphanages to ensure that children are cared for and safe from abuse.

They also suspect that many children are being trafficked to work in weaving factories or as servants, and some are being smuggled out of the country.

One child protection specialist says: “We have heard stories of children being taken by ‘brothers’ and ‘uncles’ to neighbouring countries. Once there, they could be easily transferred. It is a huge problem.”

There are estimated to be 50,000 street children in the centre of Addis Ababa. Some have lost their parents to Aids, some have run away from abusive relatives.

Others, particularly girls, have been abducted and brought to the city by Fagin-like older men.

“They are forced to work in workshops or as maids,” says Dagmawi Alemayeau, of the Forum on Street Children. “Often they are pushed into prostitution.”

His organisation tries to rescue abducted children and return them home. At its office in the ramshackle central bus station, Chuchu, 10, tells how she escaped from an older woman who kept her as a slave. “She sent me out to get milk and I ran away,” she said, wiping away tears with a dirty T-shirt. “I just want to go home.”

After her parents died, Chuchu went to live with relatives. But they could not afford to look after her and gave her to a local trafficker, who said that she would be better off in the city.

Mr Alemayeau will try to find out if Chuchu has other relatives who can look after her. If not, he will try to find her a place in a children’s home. But state and private orphanages are overflowing. The best have waiting lists.

There is little chance that she will be adopted.

Only 1,400 children were adopted last year, although this is twice as many as in previous years and the figure is rising.

The Government has put in place stringent regulations, and the process of adopting a baby can take more than a year, but demand in the West is strong.

“There are so many more orphans and orphanages in the country and the number of adoption agencies now based here has increased from four or five to over a dozen in just a couple of years,” Haddush Halefom, of the Government’s child adoption unit, said.

At $10,000 (£5,300), it is also relatively cheap. The money is paid to agencies that vet the would-be parents and deal with the paperwork.

But only the healthy ones will be taken. Few Westerners are prepared to take HIV-positive babies.

“If they are old, HIV-positive or retarded, it is very rare they are taken,” says Sister Luthgarder. “Gabriel will not be here long now, I can promise you that.”

Two brothers, aged 14 and 12, look on. “We are too big now, no one will take us,” the eldest, Wegahyeu, said.

Without his “miracle”, Gabriel would have been condemned to a life in an institution, although that is far better than the fate that befalls hundreds of thousands of others.

ETHIOPIA

Life expectancy 49

Times Recommends

• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Indian Army spends10m rupees on golf buggies
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating