If mobility, migrant labor, and gender imbalance are conducive to the swift spread of HIV, they also underscore the breakdown of social cohesion. When truckers and miners go home, they take the virus with them. Sometimes they infect their wives, sometimes women become infected through sexual contact with other men while their husbands are away. Rural infection rates are catching up to urban figures. The role men traditionally played as head of the family has broken down.
Boys grow up without fathers.
Wives are left impoverished and unprotected. A South African woman is raped every 26 seconds, the highest rate in the world. But socio-economic arguments about AIDS do not fully explain how sexual relationships are changing as African societies evolve. Notions about masculinity and fertility vary widely among Africa's diverse ethnic groups. Health workers across southern Africa agree, however, that traditional cultures had strict rules governing sexual relationships.