Introduction

Traditionally, the concept of ‘security’ has been interpreted in militaristic terms as the military defence of the state, involving “structured violence manifest in state warfare”.1

HIV/AIDS does not fit into the traditional definition of security. As Hadingham argues, however, in terms of the post-Cold War human security regime, HIV/AIDS poses a:

“Pervasive and non-violent threat to the existence of individuals, as the virus significantly shortens life expectancy, undermines quality of life and limits participation in income-generating activities. The political, social and economic consequences are equally detrimental to the community, in turn undermining its security.”2

The term ‘human security’ was first officially used in the 1994 Human Development Report of the United Nations (UN) Development Programme. According to the report, the intention of human security is “… to capture the post-Cold War peace dividend and redirect those resources towards the development agenda”.3 Hubert expands this conceptualisation, stating that:4

“... in essence, human security means safety for people from both violent and non-violent threats. It is a condition of state of being characterised by freedom from pervasive threats to people’s rights, their safety or even their lives … It is an alternative way of seeing the world, taking people as its point of reference, rather than focusing exclusively on the security or territory of governments. Like other security concepts – national security, economic security, food security – it is about protection. Human security entails taking preventative measures to reduce vulnerability and minimise risk, and taking remedial action where prevention fails.”

In January 2000, the UN Security Council debated the impact of AIDS on peace and security in Africa. The debate was the first in the Council’s history that discussed a health issue as a threat to peace and security. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the Council:

“The impact of AIDS in Africa was no less destructive than that of warfare itself. By overwhelming the continent’s health and social services, by creating millions of orphans, and by decimating health workers and teachers, AIDS is causing social and economic crises which in turn threaten political stability … In already unstable societies, this cocktail of disasters is a sure recipe for more conflict. And conflict, in turn, provides fertile ground for further infections.”5

At the same Security Council meeting the President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, said that AIDS was not just a health or development issue, but one affecting the peace and security of people in Africa.

While life expectancy in Africa had increased by 24 years in the last four decades of the 20th century, the continent’s development gains were threatened by the AIDS epidemic and life expectancy gains were being wiped out. Wolfensohn said:

“In AIDS, the world faced a war more debilitating than war itself … Without economic and social hope, there could not be peace, and AIDS undermined both. Not only did AIDS threaten stability, but a breakdown in peace fuelled the pandemic.”6

Although Africa is late in reacting to the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a security threat, the United States’ (US’s) Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been tracking the disease’s impact on the human security of sub-Saharan Africa for more than ten years. In 1990 the CIA instructed its analysts to track the dissolution of states all over the world by adding the effect of HIV/AIDS as one of the variables that determine which states would self-destruct.7

HIV/AIDS in Africa

The global HIV/AIDS epidemic is far more extensive than initially anticipated. The number of people living with HIV/AIDS at the end of the last century was more than 50% higher than had been predicted in 1991 by the World Health Organisation (WHO).8 As the Worldwatch Institute points out, the HIV epidemic raging across sub-Saharan Africa is a tragedy of epic proportions; one that is altering the region’s demographic future. It is reducing life expectancy, raising mortality, lowering fertility, creating an excess of men over women, and leaving millions of orphans in its wake.9

At the end of 2000, 36 million people were living with HIV/AIDS. Of these some 25 million (or 70%) were living in sub-Saharan Africa, even though only a tenth of the world’s population lives in the region. In the absence of a medical miracle, nearly all will die before 2010. Moreover, 80% of the three million global AIDS deaths occurred in the region during 2000. Africa has buried three-quarters of the more than 20 million people worldwide who have died of AIDS since the epidemic began.10

Altogether, at the end of 1999, there were 16 countries (all in sub-Saharan Africa) in which more than one-tenth of the adult population aged 15–49 years was infected with HIV. In seven countries (all in Southern Africa), at least one adult in five was living with the virus (see Figure 1).11 The lifetime risk of dying of AIDS is far higher than the general prevalence rate would suggest. For example, where prevalence is 15%, and rates continue to apply throughout their lifetime, over half of today’s 15-year-olds will die.12

Life expectancy and population growth in many sub-Saharan African countries is also expected to decline significantly by 2010 (see Figure 2).13

What drives this disease at such a horrific pace in Africa? The Jaipur Paradigm has been devised to serve as an econometric model to illustrate the interaction between HIV and society. Analysts praise the paradigm for its simplicity – its central premise is that in relation to HIV, societies are distinct in two parameters distributed on a continuum: susceptibility and vulnerability. Susceptibility is defined as “those aspects of a society which make it more or less likely that an epidemic will develop”, and vulnerability refers to “those aspects of a society which make it more or less likely that an epidemic will have a serious impact on social and economic organisations”.14

According to the Jaipur Paradigm, two factors modulate the level of susceptibility and vulnerability of a society: the level and distribution of wealth and income, and the degree of social cohesion. The latter concept is, of course, difficult to quantify, but easy to identify intuitively.15 Visually, the Paradigm operates on two axes:

HIV/AIDS is having a huge and detrimental impact on the economies of South and Southern Africa. Both the production and the consumption levels of economies are affected, and this has dire implications for foreign investors’ willingness to make any long-term investments in sub-Saharan Africa.

Not only will HIV/AIDS affect the day-to-day quality of life of HIV-positive individuals and their families; the disease will remove these people from their places of work while they are ill, leading to increased absenteeism also on the side of spouses. Where spouses have already died, children will have to be taken from schools in order to look after sick adults/parents. Household spending power will decrease, labour productivity will suffer, the corporate memory or skills base within companies will literally die out, and the economy as a whole, the state and the private sector will have to pick up the tab for training new workers, paying health bills and so on, which will drain the fiscus from any capacity to expend moneys on other essential services.

In a February 2001 report the UN Secretary-General warns that AIDS is reversing decades of development in the hardest-hit regions of the world.

“It [HIV/AIDS] changes family composition and the way communities operate, affecting food security and destabilising traditional support systems. By eroding the knowledge base of society and weakening production sectors, it destroys social capital. By inhibiting public and private sector development and cutting across all sectors of society, it weakens national institutions. By eventually impairing economic growth, the epidemic has an impact on investment, trade and national security, leading to still more widespread and extreme poverty.”16

An ING Barings study has quantified the sectoral impact of HIV/AIDS in South Africa (see Figure 3).17

It is useful to separate these figures for their illustrated effect on morbidity (by 2005) and mortality (by 2015). For example, by 2005 just under a third of all workers in South African mines will be HIV-positive – these workers will be absent from work regularly, leading to decreased productivity on mines. Mining companies will have to provide pecuniary resources to cope with the health status on mines, individual households will have decreased income, less spending power, and extended family members will have to stop work in order to look after the sick. By 2015 this seminal sector of the South African economy will look like a war-zone: almost eight mine workers will be dead or dying due to AIDS-related disease compared with one “normal” death. And this is but a single sector of the economy.

HIV/AIDS and food security

The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO) Committee on World Food Security notes that in the 27 most HIV/AIDS-affected countries in Africa, seven million agricultural workers have died from AIDS since 1985. Sixteen million more deaths are likely by 2020. The FAO provides a grim picture of the labour force decreases in the ten most heavily-affected countries in Africa (see Figure 4).18

At the agricultural household level, the HIV/AIDS cycle of destruction goes like this:

“A man is taken ill. While nursing him, the wife can’t weed the maize and cotton fields, mulch and pare the banana trees, dry the coffee or harvest the rice. This means less food crops and less income from cash crops. Trips to town for medical treatment, hospital fees and medicines consume savings. Traditional healers are paid in livestock. The man dies. Farm tools, sometimes cattle, are sold to pay burial expenses. Mourning practices forbid farming for several days. Precious time for farm chores is lost. In the next season, unable to hire casual labour, the family plants a smaller area. Without pesticides, weeds and bugs multiply. Children leave school to weed and harvest. Again yields are lower. With little home-grown food and without cash to buy fish or meat, family nutrition and health suffer. If the mother becomes ill with AIDS, the cycle of asset and labour loss is repeated. Families withdraw into subsistence farming. Overall production of cash crops drops.”19

AIDS also threatens the livelihood of people living in developing countries, especially the poor. In many African countries, agriculture provides a living for as many as 80% of the population. As adults in rural areas fall ill, productivity drops off dramatically. Patterns of cropping shift from cash crops to subsistence farming, reducing household income and forcing families to sell off their assets to survive.20 Even the loss of a few workers at the crucial periods of planting and harvesting can significantly reduce the size of the harvest.21 A 1997 study of Zimbabwean subsistence farmers revealed a significant decline in production in households with an AIDS death: maize (decline of 61%), cotton (–47%), vegetables (–49%), groundnuts (–37%) and cattle owned (–29%).22

The FAO also warns that agricultural post-production, food storage and processing are impaired. Thus, the security of food and other raw materials between harvests are at risk, including the availability of seeds for subsequent cropping. The FAO report concludes by underlining the systemic impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture and food security:

“HIV/AIDS does not merely affect certain agriculture and rural development sub-sectoral components, leaving others unaffected. If one component of the system is affected, it is likely that others will also be affected, either directly or indirectly.”23

HIV/AIDS and governance

HIV/AIDS detrimentally affects the capacity of governments, especially on the delivery of basic social services. Disease can decimate the ranks of skilled administrators, diminish the reach or responsiveness of governmental institutions or reduce their resilience. This will detrimentally affect the operational effectiveness of such institutions as the armed forces, police, prosecution service and judiciary. Beyond a reduction in human resources, the epidemic will result in a reduction in public revenues and budgets will be diverted towards coping with the epidemic’s impact.

Willan has attempted to address the potential of HIV/AIDS to undermine democratic governance itself.24 She highlights a few areas that together might lead to the breakdown in democracy – HIV/AIDS can, in her view, cripple a country’s attempts to establish and maintain democracy and equity because:

the next generation of political and economic leaders is being wiped out;



a magnitude of orphans poses a long-term threat to stability and development;



family structures and social society are breaking down due to their inability to cope;



the increase in the budgetary demand on governments is projected to increase to the nth degree – cutting down on delivery in other sectors of society; and



citizen support and participation in democratic governance will wane, as more people develop terminal diseases and are removed from the public sphere. This will also affect civil society’s capacity to take part in public debates, translating into a loss in society’s ability to build a sense of national cohesion.

Although the causal link between these factors and a collapse in governance capacity and democratic social values are speculative at best, these analysts are of the opinion that the future of democracy in South and Southern Africa – infantile and already tenuous – will be adversely affected by HIV/AIDS. Willan argues that, unless HIV/AIDS is regarded by governments and civil society as more than “mere” health and economic issues, “democracy itself is threatened”.25

HIV/AIDS and political stability

HIV/AIDS impacts with population pressures and trends (particularly migration and urbanisation) to create more volatile social and political situations. This combination can produce heightened competition for limited resources and foster more intense rivalries among groups in countries marked by ethnic, religious or other diversity.26

If a government is perceived to be incapable of adequately addressing health problems created by the spread of HIV/AIDS, it can produce a heightened sense of marginalisation amongst affected populations and a stronger sense of deprivation and resentment towards the government. The psychological impact can be particularly adverse when combined with chronic poverty.

These attitudes can contribute to the eruption of violence, not just spontaneously, but in some cases as the result of exploitation by ethnic, religious or national elites to serve their narrow interests.27

A US National Intelligence Council report concludes that there is a definite link between infectious disease epidemics (in particular HIV/AIDS) and security.28 For example, the report found that:

The impact of HIV/AIDS is likely to aggravate and even provoke social fragmentation and political polarisation in the hardest hit countries in the developing world.



The relationship between disease and political instability is indirect but real. Infant mortality (likely to more than double in a number of Southern African states because of HIV/AIDS by 2010) correlates strongly with political instability, particularly in countries that have achieved a measure of democratisation.



The severe social and economic impact of HIV/AIDS, and the infiltration of the epidemic into the ruling political and military elites and middle classes of developing countries are likely to intensify the struggle for political power to control scarce state resources. This will hamper the development of a civil society and other underpinnings of democracy, and will increase pressure on democratic transitions in sub-Saharan Africa.

HIV/AIDS and complex humanitarian emergencies

According to a report published by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a negative synergy exists among infectious disease (in particular HIV/AIDS), population dynamics, environmental degradation, weak government structures and long-standing grievances in segments of the population.29 This synergy creates a downward spiral between infectious disease and state capacity to respond to it. The more widespread the disease the weaker the state’s capacity to respond, and the weaker the state’s capacity the greater the increase in the prevalence of the disease.

This negative spiral is most intense in many Southern African countries whose state capacity is severely limited already because they have fewer human, financial and other resources from which to draw to break the cycle.

In some cases, the negative synergy among infectious diseases, disruptive population dynamics, environmental degradation, weak government structures, and long-standing grievances manifest itself in a specific time and place, giving rise to ‘complex emergencies’.

Complex emergencies highlight the inability of a government to cope in situations in which already predominant conditions of scarcity are made even worse. A complex emergency ruins the fabric of a society, making such a calamity enormously lethal and destructive. Sickness and disease play an important part in this process.

Moreover, the aftermath of complex humanitarian crises is consistently characterised by features which accentuate the HIV/AIDS risk climate:

Social disruption resulting in sudden, widespread and profound poverty exacerbated by reductions in agricultural output.



The lack of income leads to a sale of sex by women – but also by children.



Increased child labour, and many children living on the streets.



Active migration to find work, further disrupting family integrity.



Lives characterised by a desperation that fosters increases in sexual and domestic violence and abuse, rape and gender inequality.



Decimated health infrastructure, and deterioration of most state services such as education, security and welfare.

HIV/AIDS, the military, war and peacekeeping

War is an instrument for the spread of HIV/AIDS.

“History has revealed time and time again that the Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse – Famine, Pestilence and War – often gallop together.”30

With over a dozen violent conflicts, tens of thousands of troops and guerrilla fighters in the field, and some eight million refugees and internally displaced persons, conflict has become a major factor in the spread of HIV in Africa.

Military conflict brings economic and social dislocation, warns the Joint UN Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS), including the forced movement of refugees and internally displaced persons, and resulting in a loss of livelihoods, separation of families, collapse of health services and dramatically increased instances of rape and prostitution. All this creates conditions for the rapid spread of HIV and other infectious diseases.31

The impact of HIV on civilian populations lies in the high rates of sexual interaction between military and civilian populations whether through commercial sex, or in rape as a weapon of war; and in the extreme vulnerability of displaced and refugee populations to HIV infection.

Refugee populations – many of which are single women and unaccompanied children – are particularly vulnerable to being pressured into having sex or being raped. In the early stages of conflict situations, when a large number of refugees are on the move, their need for food and other basic necessities can be acute. Exchanging sex for money or food can therefore be commonplace. Women, for example, are six times more likely to contract HIV in a refugee camp than the general outside population.32 According to Dr Christen Halle, the head of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations:

“Among refugee and displaced people it is common for the number of commercial sex workers to increase because women feel they have no other way to keep their families alive.”

Over time established refugee camps also attract prostitutes from surrounding communities to cater for the many male refugees without partners.

According to a 1999 World Bank report, countries with big armies have higher HIV infection rates. In developing countries, military forces are often based near urban centres and consist predominantly of young, unmarried men. For the average developing country, reducing the size of the military from 30% to 12% of the urban population will reduce seroprevalence among urban adults by about 4%.33

The armed forces constitute a significant population bloc in many African countries. They are highly mobile and often called upon to serve at borders or deployed outside of national boundaries. Military personnel are a population group at special risk of exposure to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV. In peace time, STD infection rates among armed forces are generally two to five times higher than in civilian populations. In times of conflict, the risk of HIV infection for military personnel can be more than 50 times higher compared to civilians.34

There are a number of factors unique to the military environment which raise the risk of HIV infection among military personnel. Military service – especially during wartime – often includes lengthy periods spent away from home. As a result military personnel are tempted to look for ways to relieve loneliness, boredom, stress and the build-up of sexual tension. According to UNAIDS:

“Probably the single most important factor leading to high rates of HIV in the military is the practice of posting personnel far from their accustomed community or their families for long periods of time. Aside from the emotional stress this places on individuals, the practice encourages use of commercial sex.”35

Most male military personnel are in the age group at greatest risk of HIV infection – the sexually active 18–24 year age group. Relatively low levels of maturity combined with high levels of testosterone among this age group boosts aggression and the willingness to take risks. These traits are further enhanced by a military culture which encourages aggression and risk-taking as important characteristics of effective combat soldiers. However, off the battlefield this can lead to risky sexual behaviour such as purchased sex and sex without a condom. Soldiers, especially those stationed in conflict areas, often have more disposable income than the local population. This gives them the financial means to purchase sex on an on-going basis, something which is facilitated by the fact that military bases frequently attract large numbers of sex workers.

Aggressiveness may lead soldiers to engage in coercive sex and to pursue sex with multiple partners. During times of conflict this is abetted by high levels of alcohol and drug consumption by soldiers far removed – both physically and psychologically – from the norms and values of the civilian life they left behind.

Armed forces form the basis of a country’s defence and constitute the underpinning of stability both within states and between them. If they become debilitated by disease, national security is compromised. Foreign and domestic threats to a country’s national security are aggravated by the security vacuum left by weakened military forces. The International Crisis Group (a private multinational organisation devoted to understanding and preventing conflict) warns that “even the perception that a neighbour’s military is suffering from an AIDS epidemic, suggesting a tactical advantage, may trigger wars”.36 In weak states with divided societies – a common feature of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa – opposition groups could be tempted to exploit the weaknesses of armed forces debilitated by disease, by instigating civil unrest or toppling the ruling elite.

In the case of HIV, soldiers having defeated an external enemy or having completed their tour of duty in another part of their country often unwittingly introduce a lethal enemy into their communities and homes. Soldiers coming from communities with low-prevalence levels are thus likely to abet the spread of HIV in their communities after they return from their tour of duty. As one researcher puts it, the HIV virus uses returning combatants as ‘Trojan Horses’ to enter a low-prevalence area and then spread itself among the civilian populations surrounding military bases.37

As with military personnel generally, peacekeepers face a higher than average risk of exposure to STDs, including HIV. For example, Nigerian military personnel who worked as peacekeepers in the late 1990s had a HIV-prevalence rate of 7% after one year of peacekeeping duties. This increased to 10% after two years, and 15% after three years.38

Approximately one-third of the 38 000 soldiers and civilian police officers under UN command are serving in Africa, often in countries with some of the highest HIV-prevalence levels in the world. As a result, some nations may be unwilling to send peacekeeping forces to high-risk areas, raising important questions regarding foreign relations and regional security.39 Former US Ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, is on record as stating that “the US will never again vote for a [UN] peacekeeping resolution that does not require action by the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations to prevent AIDS from spreading to peacekeepers”.40 High HIV-prevalence levels can consequently jeopardise future humanitarian and peacekeeping operations, especially in African countries.

While HIV/AIDS is thus likely to hinder international attempts to respond to conflict, the epidemic is also likely to complicate attempts at post-conflict reconstruction in countries with high HIV-prevalence rates. Efforts at demilitarisation and reintegrating combatants may be threatened by dying families and villages where combatants would normally return to; and by the breakdown of government, police and civil society to the point that they may be useless in filling the gap the military leaves behind.41

HIV/AIDS and crime

In 2000, 90% of the 11 million orphans left by the global AIDS epidemic were children living in sub-Saharan Africa, even though only a tenth of the world’s population lives in the region. According to USAID, Southern Africa had 2.9 million maternal or double orphans (8% of all children under the age of 15 years) in 2000, of which 65% were orphaned because of AIDS. By 2010 the region is expected to have 5.5 million maternal or double orphans (16% of all children under the age of 15 years), of which 87% will be orphaned because of AIDS. Some countries in the region will be worse affected than others. In Botswana, for example, every fifth child is expected to be an orphan by 2010 – 96% of these children will be AIDS orphans.42 To place these percentages into context, it is sobering to point out that before AIDS only approximately 2% of children in developing countries were orphaned.43

The large number of anticipated AIDS orphans has led the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to conclude that Africa’s age-old social safety net for such children – in the form of deep-rooted kinship systems and extended-family networks – is unable to cope with the strain of AIDS and soaring numbers of orphans in the most affected countries:

“[c]apacity and resources are stretched to breaking point, and those providing the necessary care in many cases are already impoverished, often elderly and might themselves have depended financially and physically on the support of the very son or daughter who has died.”44

A number of studies have been conducted on the plight of orphans and their caretakers in various African countries. It has been shown that families that foster children in Kenya usually live below the poverty line, and that orphan households in Tanzania have more children, are larger, and have less favourable dependency ratios.45

Orphans run a greater risk of being malnourished and growth-stunted than children who have parents to look after them.46 They are also the first to be denied education when extended families cannot afford to educate all the children of the household. This lack of schooling (often combined with a lack of proper nutrition) makes it particularly difficult for orphans to escape poverty.47

Growing up without a parent or parents, and badly supervised by relatives and welfare organisations, Southern Africa’s burgeoning orphan population will be at greater than average risk to engage in criminal activity. The many orphaned African children who will grow up under extreme levels of poverty will be sorely tempted – or even obliged for the sake of their physical survival – to commit a range of property-related crimes. These crimes would include the theft of food and clothing by shoplifting and residential burglary, or the theft of other items that can be sold or traded for the necessities of life. Older orphans in their early teenage years might resort to mugging and robbery to make ends meet.

The forced migration of children because of high rural unemployment and poverty levels has long been observed in developing countries. Studies in Ghana and Uganda found that girls are increasingly being sent away to relatives in urban areas, or else to agents who placed them as domestic workers.48 This trend is likely to increase as the epidemic escalates and leaves large numbers of orphans in its wake. A significant number of child migrants flocking to the cities will increase the already high numbers of street children in Africa.49

Street children are both the cause and victims of a range of crimes. Petty thefts, muggings and theft of motor vehicles are crimes commonly associated with street children. Many such children are assaulted, abused, raped and drawn into prostitution rings.

A large influx of orphaned children into the urban slums surrounding many African cities will exacerbate socio-economic conditions, thereby creating a vibrant breeding ground for a variety of social ills such as crime. Moreover, the frequency of certain types of crime – such as gang-related crimes, vehicle thefts, robberies and burglaries – is higher in cities than in rural areas, with the rate generally increasing according to city size.

Most factors associated with high crime rates characterise cities to a greater extent than small towns or rural villages. Population density, for example, is thought to be associated with crime, in that greater concentrations of people lead to competition for limited resources, greater stress and increased conflict.50

Children who lose a parent to AIDS suffer loss and grief like any other orphan. However, their loss is exacerbated by prejudice and social exclusion, and can lead to the loss of education and health care.51 That is, the shame, fear and rejection that often surrounds people affected by HIV/AIDS can create additional stress for and isolation of children – both before and after the death of their parent or parents.

The psychological impact on a child who witnesses his or her parent dying of AIDS can be more intense than for children whose parents die from more sudden causes.

“HIV ultimately makes people ill but it runs an unpredictable course. There are typically months or years of stress, suffering or depression before a patient dies. And in developing countries, where the epidemic is concentrated, effective pain or symptom relief is often unavailable to alleviate a parent’s suffering”.52

Reviewing the impact of AIDS in South Africa, a Department of Health publication predicts that children orphaned because of AIDS could be at risk to engage in delinquent behaviour.

“As [orphaned] children under stress grow up without adequate parenting and support, they are at greater risk of developing anti-social behaviour and of being less productive members of society.”53

Research commissioned by the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund found that South African AIDS orphans are being ostracised by their communities and exploited financially by relatives who had taken them in, primarily to receive a state grant. Emotionally, the orphans were found to be suffering as a result of the deprivation of parental guidance, emotional trauma as a result of loss, and the problem of having to cope with adult responsibilities prematurely. Orphans were also vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse by neighbours and relatives.54

A review of the backgrounds of a large sample of children who have killed or committed other grave (usually violent) crimes in the United Kingdom found that 57% had experienced the death, or loss of contact, of someone important such as a parent.55

A 1998 interview study of young men serving jail sentences, or involved in crime, by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (South Africa) found that most of the interviewees were “abandoned or kicked out of their homes, or … had to live with a stepfather or mother who rejected them. Many expressed feelings of being unloved”.56

The absence of a father figure early in the lives of young males tends to increase later delinquency. Moreover, such an absence will directly affect a boy’s ability to develop self-control:

“[t]he secure attachment or emotional investment process [a father figure provides] facilitates the child’s ability to develop and demonstrate both empathy and self-control. By extension, an insecure attachment will lead to lower levels of empathy and self-control, and to an increase in violent behaviour.”57

Since the early 1990s, reports from government commissions, research reports and syntheses produced by national crime prevention organisations have identified a number of common factors associated with delinquency, violence and insecurity:58

poverty and unemployment deriving from social exclusion, especially for youth;



dysfunctional families with uncaring and inconsistent parental attitudes, violence or parental conflicts;



discrimination and exclusion deriving from one or other form of oppression;



degradation of urban environments and social bonds;



presence of facilitators (such as firearms and drugs);



social valuation of a culture of violence.

Most of the above factors – all of them if a society is also ravaged by war or conflict – are present in a large proportion of AIDS orphans in Africa. They grow up impoverished, tend to be socially excluded, are not fully cared for because of the loss of their parent(s), are often discriminated against, and grow up in an environment where social bonds are falling apart because of the high AIDS-related mortality rates among all sectors of society.

If would appear that the kind of psychological trauma and lack of parental affection and supervision experienced by AIDS orphans is a good predictor of subsequent delinquency and violent criminal activity. Insufficient research has been done on the extent of the risk AIDS orphans face of engaging in anti-social and violent behaviour in their later lives. However, given that there will be some five million AIDS orphans in Southern Africa by 2010, it is conceivable that the region will experience a significant increase in violent interpersonal crime such as murder, rape and assault, violent property crime such as robbery, and violent crime against property such as malicious injury to property.

Conclusion

Africa’s security is under threat. Using the urge at the core of what makes us human – the will to reproduce – the HIV/AIDS epidemic has infiltrated Africa’s homes, schools, governments, state institutions, factories and farms. The threat to sub-Saharan Africa’s human security is such that those who are not infected, dying and dead will undeniably be affected by the epidemic.

Surprisingly, given the magnitude of the epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa and the insecurity that plagues most regions of the continent, little research has been conducted to explore the link between HIV/AIDS and human security on the continent.

What will be the social effects of the missing generation of young adults unable to rear their children? How will intra-African peacekeeping operations be affected by the epidemic, which disproportionately affects military personnel? What impact will the virus have on the functioning of state departments on a continent where state institutions are already fragile and weak? How will 30% to 40% of the adult population, which is HIV-positive and dying, react when their governments decide to spend limited state resources on policing, education or housing instead of building more hospitals and care centres for those infected by the virus?

The figures of millions of casualties caused by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and millions of orphans left in its wake, make for depressing reading. Moreover, the epidemic is hitting Africa – and specifically Southern Africa – at a time when the continent is burdened by numerous other pressing problems, ranging from a multitude of wars and conflicts, to slowing economic growth and crumbling infrastructures. History has shown, however, that Africa and its inhabitants are resilient. Just as medieval Europe survived the bubonic plagues, so Africa will undoubtedly survive HIV/AIDS, albeit at horrific cost to its peoples.

Endnotes

G MacLean, The changing perceptions of human security: Co-ordinating national and multilateral responses, UNAC, Manitoba, 1998, p 2. See also R Bedeski, Defining human security, Centre for Global Studies, Victoria, 1999, p 1.



J Hadingham, Human security and Africa: Polemic opposites, South African Journal of International Affairs, 7(2), Winter 2000, Johannesburg, p 120.



L Axworthy, Human security: Safety for people in a changing world, Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ottawa, 1999, p 2.



D Hubert, Human security: Safety for people in a changing world, paper presented at a regional conference on The management of African security in the 21st century, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, 23-24 June 1999.



Security Council holds debate on impact of AIDS on peace and security in Africa, 4086th meeting, press release, SC/6781, 10 January 2000.



Ibid.



B Gellman, The belated global response to AIDS in Africa, The Washington Post, 5 July 2000.



AIDS epidemic update: December 2000, UNAIDS/WHO, Geneva, 2000, p 4.



L R Brown, HIV epidemic restructuring Africa’s population, Worldwatch Institute, Worldwatch Issue Alert, 31 October 2000, p 1. See: <http://www.worldwatch.org/chairman/issue/001031.html> (14 November 2000).



AIDS epidemic update, op cit.



South Africa Survey 2000/2001, South African Institute of Race Relations, Johannesburg, 2001, p 226.



Special session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS, Report of the secretary-general, 55th session, agenda item 179, 16 February 2001, paragraph 25, p 7.



South Africa Survey 2000/2001, op cit.



J Decosas J, Labour migration and HIV epidemics in Africa, in AIDS Analysis Africa 9(2), August/September, 1998.



Cohesion may refer to the cultural homogeneity of a society, the product of good governance and a strong civil society, related to a prescriptive religious culture, or the result of a controlling authoritarian political system or military dictatorship. In this manner, cohesion may be a deciding factor in determining a society’s susceptibility to HIV infection.



Special session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS, op cit, p 6.



K Quattek, The economic impact of AIDS in South Africa: a dark cloud on the horizon, in HIV/AIDS: A threat to the African renaissance?, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Occasional Paper, Johannesburg, June 2000, pp 49-50.



FAO, The impact of HIV/AIDS on food security, Committee on World Food Security, 28 May–1 June 2001, Rome.



M Sayagues, How AIDS is starving Zimbabwe, Mail & Guardian, 16 August 1999.



Special session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS, op cit, paragraph 38, p 8.



L Bollinger and J Stover, The economic impact of AIDS in South Africa, The policy project, September 1999, p 3.



A Alban and L Guinness, Socio-economic impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa, UNAIDS, 2000.



FAO, op cit.



S Willan, Will HIV/AIDS undermine democracy in South Africa?, AIDS Analysis Africa, 11(1), June/July 2000, p 14.



Ibid.



Contagion and conflict: Health as a global security challenge. A report of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute and the CSIS international security programme, January 2000, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, p 14.



Ibid, pp 15-16.



National Intelligence Council, US Government, The Global Infectious Threat and its Implications for the United States. NIE 99-17D. Washington DC: NIC,2000.



Contagion and conflict, op cit, pp 16-19.



P Chalk, Non-military security and the global order. The impact of extremism, violence and chaos on national and international security, London, MacMillan, 2000, p 103.



M Fleshman, AIDS prevention in the ranks. UN targets peacekeepers, combatants in war against disease, Africa Recovery, 15(1-2), June 2001, UN department of public information, p 16.



R Gardiner, AIDS – the undeclared war, HIV/AIDS briefing paper, Social briefing (1), UNED, February 2001, p 2.



Confronting AIDS, Public priorities in a global epidemic, World Bank policy research report, Oxford University Press, New York, September 1999, p 32.



AIDS and the military, UNAIDS point of view, UNAIDS, May 1998, p 3.



Ibid., p 1.



HIV/AIDS as a security issue, ICG Report, International Crisis Group, June 2001, Washington DC, p 21.



R Shell, Halfway to the holocaust: The economic, demographic and social implications of the AIDS pandemic to the year 2010 in the Southern African region, in: HIV/AIDS: A threat to the African renaissance?, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Occasional Paper, Johannesburg, June 2000.



A Alban and L Guinness, op cit.



L Heinecken, Strategic implications of HIV/AIDS in South Africa, Conflict, Security and Development, 2001, p 113.



R Holbrooke, Battling the AIDS pandemic, Global Issues, July 2000.



ICG Report, op cit, p 23.



S Hunter & J Williamson, J, Children on the brink – updated estimates and recommendations for intervention, Washington DC: USAID, 2000.



Children orphaned by AIDS. Front-line responses from eastern and southern Africa, UNICEF, New York, December 1999, p 3.



Ibid.



W D Myslik, A Freeman, and J Slawski, Implications of AIDS for the Southern African population age profile, Southern African Journal of Gerontology, 6(2), 1997, p 6.



Confronting AIDS. Public priorities in a global epidemic, op cit, pp 223-224.



Confronting AIDS. Public priorities in a global epidemic, op cit, pp 225-227.



K Michael, Understanding the urban impact of HIV/AIDS-associated orphanhood, in AIDS orphans in Africa. Building an urban response, Centre for Policy Studies, Johannesburg, 2001, p 25.



L R Brown, HIV epidemic restructuring Africa’s population, Worldwatch Issue Alert, 31 October 2000, Washington DC.



L Glanz, South African cities under siege, Indicator Crime and Conflict, No. 2, Winter 1995, Durban, p. 17.



The Orphans of AIDS: Breaking the Vicious Circle, <http://www.unaids.org/unaids/events/ wad/1997/orphansofaids.html> (12 May 1999).



Children Orphaned by AIDS, <http://www. unaids.org/unaids/events/wad/1997/orphan. html> (12 May 1999).



A Kinghorn and M Steinberg, HIV/Aids in South Africa: The impact and the priorities, Department of Health, (undated), p15.



C Thompson, AIDS orphans in dire need, The Citizen, 25 June 2001.



No author, Why do children become violent?, Innocenti Digest, Children and Violence, no. 2, UNICEF International Child Development Centre, Florence, p. 15.



L Segal, J Pelo, and P Rampa, Asicamtheni Magents – Let’s Talk, Magents. Youth Attitudes Towards Crime, Crime and Conflict, no. 15, Autumn 1999, University of Natal, Durban, p. 24.



R S Katz, Building the foundation for a side-by-side explanatory model: A general theory of crime, the age-graded life-course theory, and attachment theory, Western Criminology Review, 1(2), 1999, [online], <http://wcr. sonoma.edu/ v1n2/katz.html> (5 May 1999).



See Crime Prevention Digest II. Comparative analysis of successful community safety, International Centre for the Prevention of Crime, Montreal, 1999, pp 20-21.