HIV & YOUNG WOMEN

I wanted to mention young women in particular, since the infection rate amongst teenage girls is so great. According to one survey nearly one urban girl in five is HIV positive by the age of twenty!

In Zambia, many young women are involved in relationships with older men, who we call ‘sugar daddies’. The stereotype of this relationship is the fat man in the Mercedes Benz, taking school girls to expensive hotels. If this were the extent of the problem, the numbers would be limited. But the truth is that many, perhaps most, older men have teenage girlfriends. They think that young girls are free from HIV. The girls - and often their parents - see the sugar daddy as a way of relieving their poverty.