The history of Africa has been disastrous. The slave trade lasted nearly 500 years, and the continent was stripped of young people in their prime, valued for their capacity to work hard. Colonialism followed slavery, and European nations carved up the continent among themselves, plundering it of resources such as gold and diamonds. The most fertile lands were taken over by Europeans to grow plantation crops, such as coffee. Africans were the laborers in these projects, receiving no real benefits from their own resources. When Europeans withdrew, African leaders came to power and mimicked the kind of corruption that had flourished under the Europeans. They enriched themselves instead of truly developing their countries.
Tradition and culture are two other factors. Men often travel great distances to find work. Some are employed in diamond or gold mines, (still largely owned by Europeans), many are long distance truck drivers. They're away from their families for long periods, and seek sex either from prostitutes or from women they encounter. Men dominate African society; women risk a severe beating or worse if they refuse a man sex. Even at home, if a woman has heard about the protection from AIDS that a condom may afford, and asks her husband to use one, she runs the risk she'll be accused of infidelity and driven from the home. If a man discovers his wife has AIDS, he can, and often does, refuse to support her.
Polygamy was a traditional way of life for many African households, where a man and his several wives formed a viable social unit. Now, he may have several partners through prostitution; this arrangement lacks the social glue of traditional polygamy.
The AIDS virus probably spread from monkey to man when hunters of bush meat were contaminated with blood from infected animals. For years, no one knew why people were dying, or how the disease was spread. It was simply called Slim, because those affected grew thinner and thinner until they wasted away.
It wasn't until the 1980's that Ugandan doctors noticed a great number of suspicious deaths in the Rakai Province, next to Lake Victoria. They treated the victims for every known disease, but all died. When a test for the HIV virus was developed in Europe, the physicians discovered they were fighting an epidemic of AIDS. Ugandan doctors were in the forefront of experimentation proving beyond any doubt that AIDS was not spread by mosquitoes, as some claimed, but by sexual contact.
There are great disparities in Africa between rich and poor, between rural villages and large cities. The Union of South Africa is the richest country in the sub-Saharan region; the per capita income is $2,900, but 11% of the population live on less than $1. a day. In the cities of any sub-Saharan country, there are more hospitals, more health clinics, more doctors and nurses, than in the rural areas. In The Union of South Africa as a whole, there is only one physician to 1,270 persons; in Uganda, the ratio is even worse, 1 per 20,000.
Life in an impoverished rural village is something any American has difficulty believing. Much of sub-Saharan Africa is rural. Large numbers of people rely on subsistence farming for their daily food, in small plots carved out of infertile jungle land. They grow corn, squash, yams, bananas. The wife tends the garden, while her husband works to obtain money for the things they must buy, including staples such as flour or salt, school fees for the children, medical expenses, and clothing.
Life in a poor rural village in Africa is almost impossible for Americans to believe. A hut is constructed of baked earth blocks. The blocks are first formed, then placed in a large open pit with firewood in the bottom. The wood is set afire, and the bricks are covered with a large canvas to keep in the heat. They're baked for a day and a night, and cooled. Windows in the hut are simply holes, and this explains the prevalence of mosquito borne diseases such as malaria. There are no doors, only openings, and the floor is hard-packed earth. Luxuries like running water or indoor plumbing are unheard of. Behind the hut is a pit latrine. Food is cooked outside, usually over a wood fire. It's eaten from plates, using the fingers instead of forks or spoons. There's one well for an entire village. Clothing is washed in a nearby river, if one is available, otherwise, the women gather at the well to wash their clothing. Schools are erected by the government. They're usually concrete, but again windows are simple spaces left in the walls, possible reinforced with something like cinderblock. Books and paper are extremely scarce. There is a large chalkboard in front, and the children learn by reciting what the teacher writes on the board. The school is usually too small for all the pupils, and many are taught under a tree. Teachers are hired and paid for by the state. But in much of sub-Saharan Africa, teachers are dying of AIDS faster than new ones can be trained.
In the past, when an African child was orphaned, the extended family traditionally reared him. But AIDS has caused such widespread sickness and death among young adults that the extended family system is wearing thin. There's no social security as we know it in Africa; old people depend on their children to support them. Too often, the only relative left to an orphaned child is an aging grandmother with almost no resources. There are too many cases in the region where an old grandmother, frail herself, is left with ten or more orphans of her dead children. Since they can't pay school fees, the orphans must leave school. And when the grandparent dies, the child is orphaned again. In most African countries, children have no legal right to inherit land, and they're forced to leave, probably to go to the nearest city and join the growing ranks of street children, who live by begging, petty theft, and prostitution.
Too often, children, most often daughters, are the chief caregivers for a mother dying of AIDS. It's a formidable task. In the last stages of life, the patient is beset with a large number of opportunistic diseases; sores all over the body, and thrush, a painful throat fungus. For the poorest, there's little money for painkillers. The patient also loses control of all bodily functions. UNAIDS estimates to keep a dying AIDS patient clean and as comfortable as possible, 24 pails of water a day are needed. All water must be carried from the village well. In addition to caring for the patient, the children must also cook, collect firewood, and cultivate the vegetables. Think of two or three children trying to care for a mother dying of AIDS. Carrying two pails of water at a time means twelve trips to the well each day. Imagine children coping with the burden of keeping their mother as clean and comfortable as possible, as well as all the other chores of rural African living. And, in addition, try to imagine their fears about what will happen to them when their mother dies, as she surely will.
From the beginning of the pandemic, there's been such fear of the disease that those who have it and their families have been stigmatized and ostracized. This social isolation adds another burden. Very slowly, the stigma of the disease is decreasing, but especially in rural areas, where education programs about AIDS have reached fewer people, it's still there.
When children become orphans, and there's no one to help them, they try to stay together, forming their own family. They attempt to do everything necessary to maintain a household. There are many cases where the head of household is only eight. But it's almost always a losing battle, especially with young children. Sooner or later, they migrate to the nearest city in hopes of finding work.
The UN has estimated the AIDS virus could kill up to half of young adults and teenagers in sub-Saharan Africa. This will wreak social and economic havoc among the worst affected nations.
AIDS in Africa is especially cruel to women. Girls traditionally marry very young, most often to much older men, many of them already infected with the AIDS virus. Infection rates among women are soaring. In sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, by the end of 2003, 58% of those living with HIV were women, and young women age 15 to 24 were 2.5 times more likely to have the virus than young men of the same age. And without drugs, women often pass on the infection to unborn babies, either during pregnancy or through their breast milk.
All over the world, women are expected to take the lead in domestic work and in providing care to family members. But HIV/AIDS has increased the care burden for women into a care crisis. When women must use up valuable time in caring for the sick, and also caring for orphans left to them, they lack the necessary time to produce food for their families. When a man falls ill, the woman must not only care for him, but become the breadwinner. Young girls and adolescents must sacrifice their education to provide care within the home, resulting in a generation of girls who have no skills to support themselves, and who become prostitutes to simply live.
A whole generation of people in their most productive years is almost being wiped out because of the AIDS pandemic. In rural areas, food production is going down at an alarming rate. Each time someone in rural Africa dies of AIDS, family members mourn not only a father or mother, but also the loss of someone to help raise food.
Workers in the mines, in the medical profession, teachers, government clerks and ministers, the military, all are being affected. The worst is yet to come; there are already so many infected with the HIV virus that even if new infections miraculously stopped overnight, the effects of full-blown AIDS would be felt for decades to come. Today, more than 8,000 Africans die each day; by 2005, the number is projected to climb to 13,000 each day. By 2010, the UN expects there will be 20 million AIDS orphans in Africa.
We're looking at the prospect of a generation of young people with little or no moral or ethical teaching, little or no education, no way to earn a living but for begging or thievery. Even at present, rebel armies are attracting AIDS orphans, often young children, to their ranks by at least promising them food. A generation of young men and women without hope, without resources, are a sure recipe for disaster, as they may easily become recruits for organized terrorism.
Many organizations are trying to help. Church groups from all around the world have begun to work with AIDS orphans. SOS Children's Villages has opened several compounds for AIDS orphans in Uganda; they place about twelve orphans in a house with a 24-hour a day housemother. The housemother is given intensive training for this job. She takes care of the children in a family setting, is given an allowance for food and other necessities, and must do the household budgeting herself. The house is surrounded by gardens and outdoor play furniture. The Village itself consists of many such houses, and there are also elementary and secondary schools where all the children are educated. In addition, the orphans receive vocational training, so that when a child is old enough to leave, at 21, he or she can be self-supporting. This is one of the model solutions offered to the problems.
Another model solution is offered by a group in the UK, the World Medical Fund. Instead of removing AIDS orphans from their home villages, they subsidize families in the village to care for the child, supplying food and clothing, and also paying school fees. In addition, they supply the family with seed. They work in Malawi, the poorest country in sub-Saharan Africa, where the yearly per capita income is $180. They also operate vocational training centers for AIDS orphans.
In addition, many indigenous groups are forming at the village level to help families struggling with AIDS. On a positive note, women across the region are slowly become more empowered; they're forming groups, talking with one another, finding out what can be done. Since they're the traditional caregivers, they they're beginning to organize and help one another.
Sub-Saharan countries are trying to help indigenous groups working with AIDS victims. Unfortunately, though, they have almost no money to work with. Most of them are still laboring under a crushing load of international debt.
"It is unacceptable to spend more on debt servicing to wealthy nations and institutions than on basic social services when millions of people lack access to primary education, preventive health care, adequate food and safe drinking water.
"Since their economies are all beginning to slow down as a result of the AIDS crisis, African countries are unable to both finance the repayment of debt and initiate programs to help their own people." At the recent AIDS conference in Bangkok, much attention was paid to the question of forgiving African debt. An editorial iin the Lusaka (Zambia) Post, states clearly, "Truly, an obvious resource is to convert the public debt of developing countries for anti-AIDS action. Our countries must be relieved of their crippling debts; the 15 billion dollars annually that disappears down the money pit is four times more than what is spent on our people's health and education - the building blocks of the AIDS response. No country, whatever its resources, can develop with 25 to 30 percent of its population infected with AIDS, and millions and millions of orphans. Without addressing the issue of AIDS we will not be able to develop, it is a pre-requisite to our development.What is taking place in the world is worse than warfare. In Africa, one million people die from malaria everyyear, while 300 to 500 million people are infected. Moreover, two million people die of AIDS, and for every two who die, four or five more are infected. We know there have not been sufficient advances as ;yet for a vaccine and it is not known when a vaccine is going to materialise. Three million people die of tuberculosis every year."
This website will try to keep abreast of the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. We will focus on four countries in that region: Malawi, the poorest of the African nations, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia. There are links to each of these countries which will give you basic information about the country and also the latest information about children who are affected by AIDS.
You will also find links to several groups working specifically with AIDS orphans. Please go to their websites and see what they are doing to help. I hope you will feel moved to contribute to this cause.
I spent about ten years in Africa during the 1960's and 70's, and feel a great affection for the people of that continent. That is the reason for this website.
I would be happy to have your questions or comments about this website.
Ruth Calkins