Women generally shoulder the burden of caring for the sick and dying.
This effort diverts their energies from agricultural production, childcare and work that would provide income. In Ugandan districts studied, more households are headed by AIDS widows than widowers. And in several societies, women who become widows lose their rights to land and property. In some cases this leads them to engage in commercial sex as their only means of subsistence. When her husband died of AIDS she was left with seven young children.