Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
to add to such assertions about the link between poverty and inequality and
the spread of HIv/aIDS in South africa, Mark Hunter (2007) has outlined three
interlinked dynamics critical to understanding the scale of the HIv/aIDS pandemic
in South africa: rising unemployment and social inequalities that leave groups
extremely vulnerable; greatly reduced marital rates and the increase of one-person
households; and rising levels of women's migration, especially movements between
rural areas and urban areas. as a window into these changes, Hunter pays particular
attention to the country's burgeoning informal settlements—where HIv/aIDS rates
are reported to be twice the national average—and to connections between poverty
and the exchange of money for sex.
Hunter (2007) further argues that rising unemployment and sharpening inequalities
have reconstituted sexual relations and networks in decisive ways. when it comes to
dealing with the epidemic, he wants to see more attention given to recent political-
economic shifts. In South africa, although democratic transformation ended explicit
racial forms of domination, the market-based policies favoured by the post-apartheid
state have created new social divisions that help to fuel the HIv/aIDS pandemic.
Hunter draws on extensive archival and ethnographic research and field work that
reveal dramatic changes in relationships over the last generation: the plummeting
of marital rates such that less than 30 percent of adult africans are currently in
wedlock; the rapid reduction in the size of households, seen most vividly in the rise
of one-person households in informal settlements; the sharp increase in women's
movement that challenges the overwhelming prominence given to male migrancy
as a conduit for HIv infection; and the emergence of the 'materiality of everyday
sex' that can fuel multiple-partnered relationships but where 'gift exchanges' are
not simply instrumental but characterised by an exchange of obligations that might
include love and affection as well as money and sex.
whether or not these assertions merit some truth, the HIv/aIDS epidemic in
South africa is dire (see table 8-2). In 2006, an estimated 350 000 persons died
of aIDS in South africa, or 950 per day (Dorrington
et al. 2006b). Meanwhile,
the HIv-prevalence rate for adults aged 15 to 49 was estimated at 18.34 percent
for 2006 (South africa Department of Health 2007). In 2006, an estimated
Table 8-2: HIv/AIDS Indicators for South Africa
Prevalence rate in people aged 15-49 years, 2006 18.34%
total people living with HIv/aIDS, 2006 5.41 million
total children (0-14 years) living with HIv/aIDS, 2006 257 000
estimated HIv prevalence among antenatal clinic attendees, 2006 29.1%
reported aIDS-related deaths, 2005 591 213
number of people estimated receiving antiretroviral treatment, June 2005 97 000-138 000
number of people estimated needing antiretroviral treatment, June 2005 866 000
estimated HIv prevalence among antenatal clinic attendees, 2006 29.1%
Source: South Africa Department of Health (2007); National HIV and AIDS and TB Unit
(South Africa) (2006); Khomanani (2008); UNAIDS (2008).
