More youths turn to commercial sex work
Did you know that 45 per cent of new infections are among 15 to 24-year-olds?
Love Life’s status of the epidemic reports that HIV prevalence peaks among women 25 to 29 years of age, with one in three reportedly living with HIV.
“The major issue is that young people getting into relationships with older people has become highly acceptable in youth circles because they don’t realise that having a ‘sugar mommy’ or ‘sugar daddy’ who buys them fancy gadgets, expensive brand name clothing and also gives them monetary weekly spending budget in return for sex, is exactly the same as prostituting themselves,” said 22-year-old Love Life groundBREAKER, Sindy Ntwayaborwa.
A group of youngsters who are part of the Love Life groundBREAKERS Youth programme were at the Rosettenville Clinic on September 6, with the aim of encouraging parents and their children to be able to talk openly about the influences and values that shape attitudes towards sexual behaviours of different generations, also to push their agenda of having an HIV free generation.
They were joined by representatives from the Rosettenville Health Promotion Department, SANCA, Dinokeng NGO which offers home based care for youth and elderly, as well as officials of Social Development and Thusanang NGO.
What are groundBREAKERS? They are the young people who are part of the groundBREAKER (gB) programme which was established in 2001 as a community service programme targeting 18 to 25 year-olds who showed commitment to volunteering in their communities, refining their leadership qualities by developing their skills, networking opportunities and leadership potential through community-based voluntary service.
The main topic focused on commercial sex workers, basically breaking the stereotype of the ‘typical sex worker’, who is thought of by many South Africans as a scantily clad woman wearing a pink wig and fish-net stockings, standing at the corner of a dark and dodgy place in Hillbrow. Also, the general idea of a sex worker is of someone who possibly has an addiction to hard drugs.
“We want parents and youths in school and tertiary institutions to understand that the face of commercial sex working is changing, because today, even a young person who is studying at a university uses their body to get what they want,” added the groundBREAKERS.
Tertiary students especially are known to turn to older men for student accommodation payments, when they need airtime or to be treated to pamper sessions at hair and nail beauty salons.
However, the stakes are said to be higher when it comes to the transactional sex between young men and older women. These women are known to buy their “toy boys” expensive cars and in some cases, townhouses, but on condition that they will be readily available at all times whenever needed by their ‘sugar mommy’s’ who are commonly single and divorced.
The Health Professionals Council South Africa (HPCSA) boldly stated that the high HIV rate among school girls can be blamed on the ‘Sugar daddy’ syndrome. Health Care professionals agreed that young women bear the brunt of the HIV/Aids epidemic due to being easy targets for older men who barter material goods for sexual favours.
These groundBREAKERS are spreading the message that no matter what your background may be, it should not be the major determining factor of what your future will look like. “The youth should be future focused and make healthy decisions.”
Parents at the Born Free Dialogue (BFD) meeting expressed concerns on the inhibitions that hinder open communication between them and their children.
