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HEALTH-SOUTHERN AFRICA: AIDS Puts Funeral Traditions Under Pressure

Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, Feb 17 2006 (IPS) - Research indicates that traditional burials for those who die from AIDS-related diseases in Southern Africa are having a severe financial effect on households in the region, notably those in rural areas.

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, one in five adults in Southern Africa has contracted the HI-virus.

A study conducted in 2004 by the Joint Economics, AIDS and Poverty Programme (JEAPP) of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in South Africa’s port city of Durban, found that it cost the country’s citizens almost seven times more to bury a person than care for a sick relative. Certain households affected by HIV/AIDS spent up to 30 times more on funerals than on health care.

The average cost of a traditional funeral ceremony in South Africa is around 4,900 dollars, according to JEAPP; average annual household income in the country is put at 3,630 dollars*. Funeral costs include payment to the undertaker of about 325 dollars, with additional expenses arising from cleansing and other rituals, mourning garments, radio and newspaper advertisements announcing the burial, beasts for slaughter – and meals and transport for mourners.

In Swaziland, the situation is similar.

According to the Health Economics and AIDS Research Division (HEARD) of UKZN, Swazis spend up to 980 dollars on funeral ceremonies – even though two- thirds of the population is estimated to live below the poverty line, on less than a dollar a day (this according to the International Monetary Fund).

In Tanzania, households affected by HIV/AIDS may spend a year’s income on health care and funeral costs, says the World Resources Institute, a think tank based in Washington. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, funeral expenses account for about 60 percent of the direct costs incurred by a person who dies from an AIDS-related disease in this country.

Direct costs refer to expenditures for health care, food, rent, transport, burials and the like. Indirect costs relate to, amongst other things, the loss of income on the part of family members who take care of sick relatives.

Comparable trends are evident in Mozambique. Researchers at the sociology department of Eduardo Mondlane University in the capital, Maputo, have found that a funeral costs a minimum of 300 dollars in the country, where more than half the population lives below the poverty line. Hundreds of dollars more may be spent on food and flowers for cemetery visits.

Further west in Botswana, it is not unusual for a family to spend between 740 and 920 dollars on a funeral service. This takes place even though the average monthly salary of a working class person amounts to about 55 dollars, says Fred Klaits, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina in the United States who has conducted extensive research in Botswana.

Certain households cope with funeral expenses by turning to family and friends for financial assistance; they may also deplete their savings, or sell off assets such as livestock. Still others turn to loan sharks, incurring debt that may be passed from one generation to another.

Another form of assistance comes in the form of burial societies – clubs that pool members’ resources. But the constant drain on societies is threatening this system of traditional funeral insurance with complete breakdown in some instances.

In rural Tanzania, many societies have gone bankrupt, while others have started paying out only half the usual benefits, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, a multilateral research institution based in Paris.

The alternative is for burial societies to raise their fees, as they have done in Botswana, observes Klaits. However, this may also exclude poor households from the benefits provided by these societies.

However households affected by AIDS-related deaths go about paying for burials, the cost of the ceremonies is often felt in lower spending on education, household goods and other needs.

This may serve to worsen a financial situation that is already precarious. According to the Cape Town-based Health Sciences Research Council of South Africa, a non-profit organisation partly funded by government, households in Southern Africa experience a decline in income of between 48 to 78 percent when one of their members dies as a result of AIDS, excluding funeral costs.

Despite these difficulties, funeral practices continue to be observed for the most part. According HEARD researcher Nina Veenstra, this may be associated with a refusal to confront HIV/AIDS.

“It would be most important to reduce stigma and denial so that people can publicly acknowledge the pandemic and the financial burden it places on them,” she notes.

Those households which only manage to provide a basic coffin and grave site for a deceased family member find the break with tradition traumatic, says Patience Mavata, a nurse who runs an AIDS hospice in Kwa-Zulu Natal province.

“They feel that without a decent funeral they failed the dead person,” she says. “The psychological trauma of not being able to provide a decent burial lets people feel guilty and some even fall into depression.”

It appears there are few organisations which provide funeral support.

One which does, however, is the Hillcrest AIDS Centre in KwaZulu-Natal, where staff have negotiated a special rate with various funeral parlours. For the relatively low fee of just over 120 dollars, these businesses will now fetch and prepare the body, issue a death certificate, provide a simple coffin and bring the deceased to the homestead or cemetery – from Mondays to Thursdays.

The cost is lower, says Hillcrest AIDS Centre director Julie Hornby, because burials conducted during the week do not have to cater for large numbers of mourners, most of whom are at work.

The centre pays one third of the reduced fee, while families are expected to contribute about 80 dollars for the ceremony. Some have great difficulty in finding this amount, however, in which case the centre tries to provide additional funds.

* This estimate is according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

 
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