RIGHTS-SOUTHERN AFRICA: No Rest in the Twilight Years

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, Jun 29 2004 (IPS) - Getting older in Africa isn’t what it used to be.

While some of the continent’s senior citizens may, in years gone by, have enjoyed a relatively quiet retirement, this prospect has largely been wiped out by the responsibility of caring for grandchildren who have been orphaned by AIDS.

This burden is made all the heavier by the fact that government departments sometimes appear ill-equipped to assist elderly people in meeting the new demands that are being placed on them. South Africa is no exception to this trend.

"If grandparents stop giving care, children’s homes and streets will be full of AIDS orphans," warns Syd Eckley of the South African Council for the Aged, who himself runs a home for disadvantaged children in the capital, Pretoria.

"We have grandparents who have become parents again," he adds. The majority of South Africa’s AIDS orphans, who number about a million according to official statistics, are looked after by grandparents or guardians.

"The situation is desperate for older people. During my trip on a fact-finding mission across the country a few years ago, older people said they wanted government to train them on how to provide care to people living with HIV/AIDS," says Eckley. "We are still waiting for that response."

Eckley was speaking earlier this month during a two-day conference entitled ‘The Eradication of Unfair Discrimination through Access to Equality Courts’ held in the commercial hub of Johannesburg. The two-day meeting (Jun. 24 to 25) was organised by the South African Human Rights Commission, and attended by over 100 participants.

To date, about 220 equality courts have been established to deal with the various forms of discrimination that took hold during the colonial and apartheid eras. About 800 judges have also been trained to rule on issues related to discrimination.

Eckley urged the courts to tackle the widespread discrimination against old people that is reflected in a variety of matters – from administrative procedures to the treatment they receive in hospitals. Take the system of social grants, for example.

South African law entitles people who take on the care of children who are not their own to a grant of about 100 dollars a month, (and government supports up to six children per household). But the volume of the paperwork that is required for people to gain access to this money often makes it impossible for older people, many of whom are illiterate, to do so.

"If you are old and black, there is a 90 percent chance that you are illiterate," Eckley explained, adding "We are the only group in South Africa without a voice…It appears the scars of apartheid are very heavy on us." Government figures put the number of elderly people in South Africa at over two million.

Authorities say they are making strides in ensuring that those who need assistance receive it.

According to the Department of Social Development, the number of social assistance beneficiaries increased dramatically by 966,311 people from April 2000 to the end of March 2003. However, this was mostly as a result of increased registration for child support grants issued to the parents of children who are under seven years of age.

By the end of March 2003, 5.6 million people were receiving social assistance of some sort. This included old age pensions (two million people), disability grants (897,050 people) and foster care grants (133,309 people).

The problems faced by senior citizens in South Africa also occur in neighbouring countries.

In all, there are about four million children orphaned by HIV/AIDS in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), with Zambia registering the highest number of orphans in the world, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

An estimated 761,000 children have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe, say authorities there. Projections further indicate that by 2005, there will be about 1.1 million Zimbabwean children under the age of 15 who will have been orphaned due to AIDS. Many of these children will undoubtedly be placed in the care of their grandparents.

As the social support network is fraying or practically non-existent in many SADC countries, those children who cannot take refuge with relatives have few places that they can turn to.

"In Africa, older people are a library. They are a place where people go and learn," says Eckley. The challenge, in years to come, will be maintaining this tradition, but also helping senior citizens to grapple with problems that many never anticipated would become their lot.