Reconsidering the orphan problem: the emergence of male caregivers in Lesotho

ABSTRACT

Care for AIDS orphans in southern Africa is frequently characterized as a “crisis”, where kin-based networks of care are thought to be on the edge of collapse. Yet these care networks, though strained by AIDS, are still the primary mechanisms for orphan care, in large part because of the essential role grandmothers play in responding to the needs of orphans. Ongoing demographic shifts as a result of HIV/AIDS and an increasingly feminized labor market continue to disrupt and alter networks of care for orphans and vulnerable children. This paper examines the emergence of a small but growing number of male caregivers who are responding to the needs of the extended family. While these men are still few in number, the strength of gendered ideologies of female care means that this group of men is socially, if not statistically significant. Men continue to be considered caregivers of last resort, but their care will close a small but growing gap that threatens to undermine kin-based networks of care in Lesotho and across the region. The adaptation of gender roles reinforces the strength and resilience of kinship networks even when working against deeply entrenched ideas about gendered division of domestic labor.

KEYWORDS:

• HIV/AIDS
• care
• orphans
• Lesotho
• Southern Africa
• kinship
• masculinity
• gender

Acknowledgements

I am greatly appreciative of the ongoing participation of my interlocutors in Lesotho and for their thoughtful and insightful responses to my many questions. I would like to thank Lenore Manderson as well as the anonymous reviewers for their enormously helpful responses to this paper. Finally, I would like to thank Daniel Smith and Jennifer Johnson-Hanks for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper which was presented at the workshop, “Population and Development: Anthropological Perspectives” at Brown University in 2014.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Ntate (father) and ‘M’e (mother) are widely used when addressing adults in Lesotho. All names are pseudonyms.

2. Adult mortality increased from 11.1 deaths per 1000 years of exposure (Lesotho Ministry of Health and Social Welfare 2004) to 13.6 deaths per 1000 years of exposure (Lesotho Ministry of Health and Social Welfare 2010) for both men and women. Maternal mortality, which is defined as death of the mother occurring during pregnancy, childbirth, or within two months postpartum, also rose during this period from 964 (Lesotho Ministry of Health and Social Welfare 2004) to 1435 (Lesotho Ministry of Health and Social Welfare 2010) maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a U.S. Fulbright Scholar Grant and by the Population Studies and Training Center (PSTC) at Brown University. The PSTC receives core support from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [grant number 5R24HD041020].