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The effect of prime-age adult death and its consequences on access to land for the survivors has not been fully explored nor incorporated into policy regardless the fact that high adult mortality is now
the lived reality in countries affected by HIV/AIDS, particularly in Africa. This paper explores the
gendered relationships between adult death due to HIV/AIDS and changes in land rights for the
survivors particularly widows. In many African societies, women have traditionally accessed land
through marriage. The stability and longevity of marriage guaranteed wife’s continued access to land
and other productive resources. However, with HIV/AIDS, and consequences of high mortality
among prime-age adult men, women’s access to land is increasingly becoming tenuous. This is partly
due to break-down of rules and institutions (including but not limited to wife inheritance) that have
traditionally guaranteed women’s usufruct and other forms of access to land. This breakdown of rules
and institutions, we argue puts women at higher risks of contracting HIV/AIDS. This is not merely an
individual risk, but a societal one, in which the epidemic will continue to perpetuate itself due to overt gender inequalities to ownership and control of land resources.
