OOPS: I have a ... above, meant to be a link to a message.

I also needed to 'patch' util.py - with 32-bit build with something like this:
--- src/python-2.7.13/Lib/ctypes/util.py        2016-12-17 20:05:05 +0000
+++ python-2.7.13.0/Lib/ctypes/util.py  2017-01-13 13:29:12 +0000
@@ -299,6 +299,10 @@
             print cdll.LoadLibrary("libcrypto.dylib")
             print cdll.LoadLibrary("libSystem.dylib")
             print cdll.LoadLibrary("System.framework/System")
+        elif sys.platform[:3] == "aix":
+            from ctypes import CDLL
+            RTLD_MEMBER =  0x00040000
+            print CDLL("libc.a(shr.o)", RTLD_MEMBER)
         else:
             print cdll.LoadLibrary("libm.so")
             print cdll.LoadLibrary("libcrypt.so")


And 64-bit with:

    1:         elif sys.platform[:3] == "aix":
    1:             from ctypes import CDLL
    1:             RTLD_MEMBER =  0x00040000
    1:             print CDLL("libc_64.a(shr.o)", RTLD_MEMBER)

The respective output is:

root@x064:[/data/prj/python/python-2.7.13.0]./python Lib/ctypes/util.py
None
None
None
<CDLL 'libc.a(shr.o)', handle 10 at 300fe0b0>

root@x064:[/data/prj/python/python-2.7.12.0]./python Lib/ctypes/util.py
None
None
None
<CDLL 'libc.a(shr_64.o)', handle d at 7000000001941d0>