Teenage girls are vulnerable to HIV/STDs infection
Saturday, 1 December 2007
Muslema Khan
Teenage girls across the world are particularly vulnerable to HIV/STDs infection. At this sensitive age of transition, multiple, rapid, and profound changes take place to individuals. Teenage girls today are coming of age in a more dangerous, sexualised, and media-saturated culture. They face incredible pressures to use chemical cosmetics to be beautiful and sophisticated. Such cosmetics also encourage them to be sexual. They navigate a dangerous world with little protection. The social status of women in many countries overlooks gender discrimination, domestic and sexual violence and psychological abuse.
Teenage girls in poor families in developing countries often do not have the option to choose their sexual and reproductive lives, such as when and whom to marry, whether, when and how many children to have, and whether to use contraceptives. Women are married off very young. Nearly two thirds of teens in most South Asian countries are given in marriage, by their families, before 18 years of age, and many even before 15 years, despite laws prohibiting such early marriage.
Biologically, young women are more susceptible to HIV infection than older women. Because they make up a large proportion of the sexually active population of developing countries, a large proportion of new infections occur in this age group. A survey by Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation in three brothels in southwest region in Bangladesh, did point out that almost 16 per cent of sex workers enter the profession before the age of 18, and 30 per cent enter between 18 to 24. Approximately 10 per cent of prostitutes belong to the scheduled castes.
The HIV/AIDS programme specialist Mr. Mohammad Khairul Alam said, several social norms and immature behaviour fueled this disease to scatter rapidly. There are several social component-links that contribute to this harmful situation. Poverty, gender discrimination, frustration and risky behaviour could result in infection. The link between poverty and gender discrimination hinders socio economic prosperity. This link creates several anti-social activities and issues like trafficking to prostitution and break-down of family norms to create frustration and drug addiction. Illiteracy and ignorance can be exploited in all such circumstances. Several programmes backed by a strategy are needed to fight the problem.
In some cultures, young women are sexually abused by older men out of a superstition that they are less likely to be infected with HIV. Such superstition also leads to sex with young virgin's for the cure for HIV/AIDS. The young have often less of access to information or means to protect themselves from HIV infection. For all these reasons, UNFPA is right to make young people a focus of HIV/AIDS prevention programmes. In some countries, adolescents in the 10-15 age group should be a priority, as these are the years when sexual initiation occurs and sexual attitudes and behaviours are formed. In these countries, HIV/AIDS prevention message to be effective, should focus on the youth. Programmes of sex education for pre- and young-teens have been successfully implemented in countries as diverse as Uganda and Sweden.
However, in the Asian region, the epidemic is not limited to these at-risk populations. HIV is spreading rapidly to sex industry clients, including sex tourists, and to the sexual partners of both sex workers and IDUs. Evidence that the virus is reaching general populations can be found in the neonatal clinics of the Indian provinces of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, and Nagaland, where more than one per cent of pregnant young mothers are HIV positive.
The response and capacity required to address the identified vulnerabilities in Asia, should be within the region. Although capacities, commitment and resources within countries are varied, a diverse range of successful responses exist within Asia. Examples of countries which successfully reduced the impact of the epidemic with early response, include Thailand and Cambodia. As a result of continued and concerted advocacy, all national governments in the region have developed national plans -- most of which recognise the need for multi-sectoral approaches.
The writer is an AIDS Researcher based in Dhaka. Bulon.email@gmail.com
Teenage girls across the world are particularly vulnerable to HIV/STDs infection. At this sensitive age of transition, multiple, rapid, and profound changes take place to individuals. Teenage girls today are coming of age in a more dangerous, sexualised, and media-saturated culture. They face incredible pressures to use chemical cosmetics to be beautiful and sophisticated. Such cosmetics also encourage them to be sexual. They navigate a dangerous world with little protection. The social status of women in many countries overlooks gender discrimination, domestic and sexual violence and psychological abuse.
Teenage girls in poor families in developing countries often do not have the option to choose their sexual and reproductive lives, such as when and whom to marry, whether, when and how many children to have, and whether to use contraceptives. Women are married off very young. Nearly two thirds of teens in most South Asian countries are given in marriage, by their families, before 18 years of age, and many even before 15 years, despite laws prohibiting such early marriage.
Biologically, young women are more susceptible to HIV infection than older women. Because they make up a large proportion of the sexually active population of developing countries, a large proportion of new infections occur in this age group. A survey by Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation in three brothels in southwest region in Bangladesh, did point out that almost 16 per cent of sex workers enter the profession before the age of 18, and 30 per cent enter between 18 to 24. Approximately 10 per cent of prostitutes belong to the scheduled castes.
The HIV/AIDS programme specialist Mr. Mohammad Khairul Alam said, several social norms and immature behaviour fueled this disease to scatter rapidly. There are several social component-links that contribute to this harmful situation. Poverty, gender discrimination, frustration and risky behaviour could result in infection. The link between poverty and gender discrimination hinders socio economic prosperity. This link creates several anti-social activities and issues like trafficking to prostitution and break-down of family norms to create frustration and drug addiction. Illiteracy and ignorance can be exploited in all such circumstances. Several programmes backed by a strategy are needed to fight the problem.
In some cultures, young women are sexually abused by older men out of a superstition that they are less likely to be infected with HIV. Such superstition also leads to sex with young virgin's for the cure for HIV/AIDS. The young have often less of access to information or means to protect themselves from HIV infection. For all these reasons, UNFPA is right to make young people a focus of HIV/AIDS prevention programmes. In some countries, adolescents in the 10-15 age group should be a priority, as these are the years when sexual initiation occurs and sexual attitudes and behaviours are formed. In these countries, HIV/AIDS prevention message to be effective, should focus on the youth. Programmes of sex education for pre- and young-teens have been successfully implemented in countries as diverse as Uganda and Sweden.
However, in the Asian region, the epidemic is not limited to these at-risk populations. HIV is spreading rapidly to sex industry clients, including sex tourists, and to the sexual partners of both sex workers and IDUs. Evidence that the virus is reaching general populations can be found in the neonatal clinics of the Indian provinces of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, and Nagaland, where more than one per cent of pregnant young mothers are HIV positive.
The response and capacity required to address the identified vulnerabilities in Asia, should be within the region. Although capacities, commitment and resources within countries are varied, a diverse range of successful responses exist within Asia. Examples of countries which successfully reduced the impact of the epidemic with early response, include Thailand and Cambodia. As a result of continued and concerted advocacy, all national governments in the region have developed national plans -- most of which recognise the need for multi-sectoral approaches.
The writer is an AIDS Researcher based in Dhaka. Bulon.email@gmail.com