![Sample our Environment & Sustainability journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5935/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Environment-Sustainability.jpg"})
Abstract
The fluidity of southern African families is related to a long history of internal and external migration. Currently, HIV/AIDS is having a dramatic impact on extended family structures, with the migration of individual members employed as a coping strategy. Children's migration is one aspect of this that is often distinct from that undertaken by other household members. This article is based on qualitative research conducted in Lesotho and Malawi with young migrants and the households that receive them. It examines the processes of fragmentation and re-formation of households through the movements of children that are taking place in response to HIV/AIDS, and explores the impacts these processes have on young migrants and the households they join.
Notes
1The term “coping strategy” is used here to refer to actions employed in response to crises, not to suggest that such actions are either successful or carefully planned (CitationAnsell and Young 2002).
2Periods shorter than one month were discounted to exclude visits to relatives.
3The term “family unit” is used in this article to refer to the nuclear family unit of parents and children, regardless of whether they are part of a larger household unit.
4It must be noted that these figures are underrepresented, as they refer only to children under the age of 15 who have lost one or both parents.
5Urban and rural communities were selected to identify particular issues faced by children moving from urban to rural areas and vice versa. These issues are discussed in more detail elsewhere (CitationYoung and Ansell 2002).
6The research was confined to this age range to access children who had well-informed views regarding migration and had moved at least once.
7In Malawi, this involved children in standards 5 to 8 in primary school. In Lesotho, children from standards 5 to 7 in the primary school and form 1 of affiliated high schools participated in the research.
8For ethical and practical reasons, the research was not restricted to those children whose situations were demonstrably related to HIV/AIDS. Although cause of death was discussed, the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS meant that this was rarely cited as the cause of death. Given that two-thirds of orphans in Malawi and Lesotho are AIDS orphans (CitationHunter and Williamson 2000), the majority of the children involved in the stories related here will have been indirectly affected by AIDS.
9The qualitative research revealed that sometimes children's given reasons for migration, such as poverty or employment-seeking, were actually directly related to death in the family.
10To protect children's identities, all names used are pseudonyms.
*This research was funded by U.K. Department for International Development (DFID). Department of International Development supports policies, programs, and projects to promote international development. It provided funds for this study as part of that objective, but the views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors alone. The authors would like to thank three anonymous referees for their comments on an earlier draft of this article. Thanks to Motselisi Motsieloa in Lesotho and Lumbani Pete and Lloyd Chitera in Malawi, for research assistance in the field, the Institute of Southern African Studies, National University of Lesotho and the Department of Geography, Chancellor College, University of Malawi, for institutional support, and also to those who participated in the research.