HIV/AIDS – The Big Picture

It is tempting when writing about the HIV/AIDS situation to approach such writings from a purely statistical viewpoint. However statistics are merely numbers and thus provide only the outline of the picture. It is when you talk about the people that the picture is brought to life by the addition of colour. However before painting the details let us with broad brush strokes add a backdrop.

 HIV/AIDS in South Africa is predominantly a sexually transmitted disease. The people that have therefore been directly affected the most are those that are sexually active. This covers a broad age range but it correlates closely to those who are the bread winners in the family. A single bread winner may actually be the sole provider of finances to a large group of people which includes fathers, mothers, aunts and uncles, brothers, sisters and their own immediate family including their spouse and children. In the past this extended family would have taken care of any orphaned children. Sadly the extended family is becoming a thing of the past and many children are now left in the care of an aging grandmother or older siblings. Denial has worked against stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS while superstition has lead to its spread to innocent children.

Against this backdrop let us consider several scenarios. For example two widows facing their own imminent death knowing that collectively they leave behind 7 children. The anguish they feel is magnified by the knowledge that none of their children are registered with the Department of Home Affairs and therefore are without birth certificates. The lack of a birth certificate means that grant monies will not be paid to anyone willing to take on the added responsibility of looking after their children.

The picture is embellished with a splash of colour when you consider the plight of four children found by hospice workers while on their rounds. Two fresh graves bare testimony to the fat that these four children had recently buried their parents within the grounds of their homestead. On of the four children was noticeably ill. On a subsequent visit the hospice worker literally fell into a hole that the children had been digging. It was the grave for the sick child who had recently died. Intervention saw the remaining three children being admitted to a local hospital where they received medical treatment and much needed food.

The richness of the picture is enhanced if one can picture a community where income earning adults are absent and grandchildren are living in the sole care of aging grandmothers. Grandfathers are noticeably absent. These grandchildren are themselves becoming mothers – children bearing children. What meager provisions are in the home are purchased with the grandmothers pension money. Her time on this earth is drawing to an end and the future of the grandchildren and great grandchildren is uncertain.

The lack of available space makes it impossible to add many more layers of paint to the picture. A picture that would further help you to understand the desperation that drives women to abandon their own babies, some where they will be found, but others down pit latrines, in cane fields and out in the bush. These women are desperate for they live in desperate times.