Africa, Development & Aid, Headlines, Health, Poverty & SDGs

SWAZILAND: Torn Social Fabric Leaves Many Exposed

Mantoe Phakathi

MBABANE, Sep 26 2008 (IPS) - An abandoned straw hut slumps amidst overgrown bushes on a somewhat deserted homestead. Only a foot path leading past it indicates that the place is still occupied. Beside it is the mis-shapen tent that is Joseph Mathe's new home.

Mathe emerges from the tent when his name is called. He appears a weary figure – the 51 year old suffers from TB and walks with the support of a walking stick. He has lived alone here in Manyovu village in the Lubombo region in eastern part of Swaziland since his wife died 10 years ago.

While the tent is an imperfect solution to his housing problem, it has at least saved him from the rain which was leaking through the roof of his straw hut. "But the wind often threatens to blow the tent away and I have to get up and I hold it down," he says.

Mathe is one of thousands of Swazis facing an accommodation crisis. AIDS and other diseases have made the situation so desperate that in many households, all the adults have passed away, leaving children to fend for themselves.

Government is considering building hostels for vulnerable groups including orphans and vulnerable children and the elderly. But this proposal is being frowned upon from certain influential quarters. In Swaziland, according to the traditional prime minister, Jim Gama, everyone has a relative and needy people should be taken in by members of their extended families.

But former minister of economic planning and development Muntu Dlamini said the nation has to come to terms with the reality that the extended family structure is no longer effective because of the burden brought by HIV/AIDS.

"Government has to step in and provide shelter for those who can't afford to put a roof over their shoulders," said Dlamini.

For the moment, tents are a common sight throughout the drought-ravaged Lubombo region where many homesteads are falling apart and in some instances houses have been destroyed completely.

The National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA) has given the tents to the St. Philip's Cabrini Ministries which in turn distribute them to the destitute in this area.

According to NERCHA director Derrick von Wissel, the tents were received from International Rotary Club which funded the material while Shelter Box, an international NGO, put together the structure.

"These tents are for temporary housing and usually put up in disaster areas," said von Wissel. "So in this country these tents are given to vulnerable people with poor housing."

Cabrini Ministries executive director Sister Diane DalleMolle said the additional strain posed by the lack of housing for many people is going to make it even harder for the country to cope with HIV/AIDS. According to the 2007 Swaziland Demographic Health Survey, Swaziland has the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in the world with 26 percent of the productive age group of 15 to 49 years infected with HIV/AIDS.

"A lot of people are living in dilapidated structures either because parents have died, leaving behind young children and their grandparents who are not in a position to refurbish or build new houses or people are too poor or sick to afford decent shelter," said Sister DalleMolle.

Just a stone's throw away from Mathe's residence lives Lomgcibelo Vilakati, another TB patient, who faces the same predicament as her neighbour. Vilakati's tent did not survive the strong winds that tore it apart forcing her to go back to the leaking hut she was sharing with her husband and their six children. There are only two run-down huts in the Vilakati homestead with one serving as a bedroom and the other as a kitchen.

"Losing the tent was a big blow for me because the hut which I now share with the rest of my family is poorly ventilated and there is a high risk that I might infect others with TB," said Vilakati.

One hundred sixty tents have been put up at three chiefdoms in the region. But the challenge, said Sister DalleMolle, is the strong winds that blows out these tents taking the people back to square one.

In fact these tents were never meant to last longer than six months according to Director of Cabrini OVC Hostel Sister Barbara Staley. She said they were intended as temporary structures, emergency relief for people with poor housing.

In response, the Cabrini Ministries have built an OVC hostel that accommodates 140 children.

In many homesteads, because of the scarcity of accommodation, children of both sexes have no choice but to sleep together something that Sister DalleMolle said was sexually provocative.

"The children would then cross lines they would not have crossed if they were not made to sleep together," she said. "That is why we need to build OVC hostels within the communities, where these children will grow up under the guidance of professional staff."

Former minister Dlamini said the provision of shelter to vulnerable groups is provided for in the Poverty Reduction Strategy and Action Programme (PRSAP) which addresses the issue of improving housing and housing conditions for vulnerable groups.

The document reads: "With the escalating human capacity challenges caused by HIV/AIDS and other emerging diseases such as diabetes, cancer, hypertension, it has become critical for the PRSAP to address the increased burden and demand for social services as well as the constraints the HIV virus in particular is posing on the quality and delivery of service."

Dlamini said putting together the strategy which King Mswati III launched in April was a step in the right direction towards the provision of housing for poor Swazis. With a new government coming in October after the nation went to the polls on September 19, it remains to be seen if the provision of housing for vulnerable groups will be a priority.