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this page Newsletters - The International Year of the Family
South Africa - HIV/AIDS
There is excitement and hope as we celebrate ten years of freedom and democracy. New opportunities have emerged in most spheres of life for all families. Laws that seek to enhance family life and to support the young, the aged and the disabled are in place. Unfortunately a dark cloud threatens to eclipse the rainbow of hope and excitement. That cloud is HIV/AIDS.
The statistics are quite scary - 1500 new infections as well as about 600 deaths daily. As we watch graveyards filling up, as families bury several members (mostly young breadwinners), as we attend funerals of friends, colleagues, relatives and fellow believers, the statistics become real people.
Family life is changing as new family patterns emerge. There are no reference points as these are “first-time” situations in our communities. We find ourselves having to “change tyres while a car is in motion”, as we try to find answers and solutions to problems that nobody ever imagined.
Orphans have to be “parented” by aged grandparents who are themselves battling to survive. Most of them are poor, sickly, semi-literate and unskilled. Parenting during periods of rapid social change is difficult even for young adults, yet nowadays that high, impossible task rests on weary, aged shoulders.
Another first is the question of “child-headed” households where immature teenagers are catapulted into parenting their siblings. The financial assistance offered by the Government is most appreciated but it cannot replace parental love, support and guidance.
Most families find themselves trapped in a cycle of poverty. Hopelessness and helplessness torments most ageing parents as they bury sons and daughters on whom they had pinned all their hopes. These sons and daughters had been put through education using all the meagre resources that families could scrape together. Instead of improving the lifestyle of the parents, they die - leaving behind a burden of orphans. Sometimes, these potential breadwinners die after a protracted illness that drains whatever resources they had begun to accumulate.
There is an increase in street children as well as abandoned babies. Child prostitution is also rearing its ugly head as some orphans explore other ways of making ends meet. Sexual abuse of infants and young girls is fuelled by certain myths that go around despite education programmes. For example, there is a rampant myth that sexual intercourse with a virgin cures AIDS.
As can be deduced, women and girls are the most hard-hit. They care for the sick, they initiate and maintain support groups, they look after the orphans BUT they sometimes get blamed for the spread of HIV/AIDS. Because of the patriarchal nature of society, male infidelity is not just tolerated but it is actually accepted as normal.
In some families, relationships are forever strained as one or both parents reject their HIV-positive child/children. In other families, parents quarrel and blame each other. There are also instances where fear of rejection and stigma results in suicide and divorce. There have been cases of murder where angry HIV-positive male partners identify their sexual partners as the reason for their status and decide to kill them. These are the challenges that families have to deal with.
A lot of women who live in rural areas and are either illiterate or semi-literate, get infected and die without knowing what hit them. Their husbands, who work in cities away from home, might outlive them as nutrition is relatively better in the cities.
The magnitude of the problem has forced government, civil society and faith-based organisations to form partnerships that share ideas, skills and resources.
We hope for a miracle that will activate the link between knowledge and behaviour, because while many people know the facts about HIV/AIDS, they still behave irresponsibly. An internalisation of acceptable moral values as well as the realization that no-one is above HIV/AIDS remains an ideal for which we strive. As the Archbishop of Cape Town says: “We are working for a generation without AIDS but in the meantime we must ensure that nobody dies or cares alone. We must work at extending life through treatment and aggressive prevention.”
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