ABSTRACT
At a meeting on AIDS in the mid-1980s a distinguished senior scientist said unequivocally, 'Women do not have to worry about AIDS if they don't inject drugs. As far as sex is concerned, this is a gay man's disease.' He was, of course, very wrong about heterosexual transmission. But even if women were not at risk of becoming infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, they would still have had to 'worry about AIDS'. Women's lives are complex. Their personal identities, unique and valuable in themselves, are nonetheless typically tied to their relationships with others - their parents, siblings, sexual partners and, especially, children. The mothers, sisters and friends of many gay men 'worry about AIDS', take care of their dying loved ones and grieve at their loss. Women involved in heterosexual relationships where their partners may have engaged in high-risk behaviour should 'worry about AIDS' because of their own risk of becoming infected. Pregnant HIV infected women worry about transmitting the virus to their unborn child. This chapter, however, is about another worry: HIV infected mothers worry about what will happen to their children when they die. And frequendy it falls to other women to take care of the surviving children. Women, at the margins of the early discussions of AIDS, are now at its centre. HIV/AIDS is a global epidemic that is creating a vast number of children with dead or dying parents. Although paediatric AIDS is a serious health problem, most young people who are orphaned are not HIV infected but are at high risk of economic deprivation, a range of behavioural and developmental problems, as well as of engaging in high-risk behaviours associated with HIV transmission. When their parents die, some of these children need new sources of financial assistance, shelter, food and medical care, and all of them need emotional support and guidance.
