Grandmothers are real heroes of the AIDS pandemic

30 Nov 2007
HelpAge International - UK
Website: http://www.helpage.org

Older women provide the backbone of AIDS care but their role as carers of people living with HIV and children orphaned by AIDS is neither recognised nor supported, says HelpAge International on World AIDS Day.

In two new reports launched on World AIDS Day, Stronger together and Committed to caring, HelpAge International estimates that around half of all older people in severely affected areas now care for adult children living with HIV and/or children orphaned by AIDS.

UNICEF figures show that the number of children orphaned by AIDS currently stands at 15 million and is forecast to rise to 24 million by 2010, increasing the burden of care placed on older people.

Stronger together looks at the role older people play in the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. The report highlights the fact that 40-60% of orphaned children not living with a surviving parent in Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Namibia are cared for by their grandmothers.

Committed to caring focuses on AIDS care in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. The report found that 62% of parents in Cambodia and 70% in Thailand lived with a child prior to their death from an AIDS-related illness.

65-year-old Youem from Cambodia lives with her husband, nephew, and three grandchildren aged 4, 5, and 6. Yoeum's oldest grandchild, a boy, is HIV positive. He was diagnosed after he became sick two years ago. Yoeum has been his primary carer since then.

In a Declaration of Commitment on HIV and AIDS in 2001, UN member states formally recognised the role played by older people, and pledged to adjust and adopt economic and social development policies to respond to the specific needs of older carers.

Six years on, more and more governments and agencies understand that in order to reach vulnerable children their carers have to be targeted. Yet few national policies reflect the needs of older carers and only a relatively small number of NGOs and community-based organisations address them.

"Older people are being openly being discriminated against by policy makers," says Richard Blewitt, Chief Executive Officer of HelpAge International. "There is a global scandal around the continuing neglect of heroic grandmothers caring for people living with HIV and children orphaned by AIDS. Very few resources are being provided to those nurturing, loving and caring, often in the face of great adversity."

HelpAge International is calling on governments to act now by:

• providing social protection measures to mitigate against the economic drain caused by taking on caring responsibilities
• including older people in efforts to scale-up universal access to HIV prevention, care and treatment by 2010
• counting older people in statistics and data collection so the HIV response is relevant and effective.

"HelpAge International advocates for social protection measures such as a pension, child grant or carer's allowance," says Richard Blewitt.

"Research has shown that such measures can make a huge difference to older people and their families, by supporting them in their care role and breaking the cycle of poverty handed down from generation to generation."

Cambodia turns to private sector in fight against AIDS

Wed, 21 Nov 2007
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodia signalled Wednesday it was turning to the private sector for financial and demographic assistance in the battle against HIV and AIDS, with a visit of the nation's first lady to a garment factory. Cambodian Red Cross president and wife of Prime Minister Hun Sen, Bun Rany, made the visit to the jointly US-Taiwan owned Interhope garment factory, 20 kilometres from the capital, to show support for work-based initiatives to combat the spread of the virus.

Bun Rany, whom many analysts watch almost as closely as her husband for clues on key Cambodian policy direction, is expected to launch an HIV and AIDS business guide on World AIDS Day on December 1 as rapid economic growth increasingly sees business having a greater impact on communities than donor-based assistance.

She is scheduled to visit a host of other businesses which have taken the initiative to develop education programmes or lent financial backing to the cause over coming months.

"Don't bring AIDS home," Bun Rany told more than 1,000 workers, most of them young women. "If the wife is affected, the children are affected too. This puts the burden on the grandparents.

"Most problems are caused when we forget AIDS, but AIDS never forgets us," she added as they received gifts donated by the factory.

Cambodia's more than 300,000 garment workers are seen as a high risk group for infection as many of them are young women far from their homes and Cambodia's high HIV rate has created a trend for men to find girlfriends, rather than prostitutes.

These relationships are rarely exclusive, but girlfriends are less likely to demand condom use with men they feel they know.

Cambodia's labour force is up to 6.2 million, and the government estimates that almost 56,000 of them are likely to be infected with HIV based on the latest prevalence estimate of 0.9 percent.

This estimate, made by the government in mid-20007, is 50 per cent higher than the estimate found in the 2005 Health Survey which put household prevalence at 0.6 per cent as household surveys are likely to exclude key high-risk populations such as garment workers.

Cambodia has one of the highest rates of infection in the region.