AIDS a Growing Threat to Rural Areas, U.N. Reports
"AIDS is becoming a greater threat in rural areas of the developing world than in cities, undermining agricultural systems and jeopardizing food security," the Rome, Italy-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement posted to its Web site on Thursday. Reuters/Excite News reports that the FAO said that 95% of people living with HIV/AIDS reside in developing countries, and "[w]ithin those countries, AIDS is becoming a greater threat in rural areas than in the cities." FAO reports that the AIDS epidemic is spreading "with alarming speed into the remotest villages, cutting food production and threatening the very life of rural communities." The organization added, "As adults fall ill and die, families face declining productivity as well as loss of knowledge about indigenous farming methods and loss of assets." The FAO estimates that seven million agricultural workers have died of AIDS, which may kill an additional 16 million within the next 20 years. Rural communities are also hit harder because many "urban dwellers" and migrant laborers return to their villages of origin when they become ill. Medical bills and funeral costs raise household expenses while the proportion of productive family members to dependents declines. The FAO said, "These realities endanger both short-term and long-term household food security."
Women at Greatest Risk
In addition to the "biological" factors that make women and girls more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, certain social customs put women at greater risk of contracting the virus. According to the FAO statement, "Some of the traditional mechanisms to ensure women's access to land in case of widowhood contribute to the spread of AIDS -- such as the custom that obliges a man to marry his brother's widow." In other societies, "a widow who loses access to her husband's property can be forced into commercial sex as her only means of subsistence," the FAO said. As productive family members die, many girls are withdrawing from school to help "lighten the family load." The FAO concluded, "It is clear that the epidemic is undermining the progress made in the last 40 years of agricultural and rural development. This poses enormous challenges to governments, non-governmental organizations and the international community. The disease is no longer just a health problem -- it has become a major developmental issue" (Reuters/Excite News, 12/4).