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abstract
The HIV and AIDS pandemic has resulted in a large number of people relying on home-based care, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, due to lack of access to the public health care system. Older women shoulder the greatest burden in the care and support of people living with HIV and AIDS, orphans and vulnerable children, yet their labour remains invisible in both policy and practice. This Briefing examines narratives of grandmothers from South Africa and Nigeria in order to highlight the fundamental assumptions related to older women's readiness to provide unpaid care work. Drawing on empirical evidence from a total of 80 women caregivers, the Briefing demonstrates that grandmothers have become jacks-of-all-trades caring for orphans and terminally ill adults in communities affected by HIV and AIDS. However, their care-giving role is often devalued and unrecognised. Such attitudes reinforce negative stereotypes of old age as characterised by passive, incompetent and senile individuals, who are less productive than their younger counterparts. This Briefing concludes that unless older women's oppression becomes central to the feminist agenda, the notion of women's rights will remain elusive.