A pilot programme will be conducted to test the effectiveness of weaning teen girls from older sugar daddies who offer money in exchange for sexual favours. Details have to be worked out such as how the girls will be monitored to ensure they are not having sex.
A source with the royal family denied that the financial payouts to girls to avoid sex were designed to ensure an HIV-free population of Swazi virgins who could be King Mswati’s future wives. The polygamous king has 15 wives and selects teenage girls as his new brides, often at the annual Reed Dance at which up to 70,000 girls dance semi-naked before the royal viewing box.
One teenager in Manzini, Zodwa Fakudze, 16, said R200 was not sufficient to discourage girls from accepting gifts from older men to have sex. “Today’s girls need things, like airtime for our cellphones. R200 is not enough. That is how much government gives my gogo (grandmother) each month and she will never get Aids because no one over (the age of) 40 has to have sex,” she said.
Another girl, Thandi Tfwala, 17, a Manzini high school pupil, noted, “A girl could get R200 for just one sex act. Government must pay more.” When told the allowance was not intended to put a price on sexual activity but to help make girls independent of the need to take gifts and thus be better able to safeguard their health, she said: “You don’t know Swazi girls. If they don’t get more money they will keep on doing what they do now, even the Christian girls. Our king will have to go to Cape Town for his brides.”
Studies have found that among the general Swazi population girls and young women aged 18 to 24 are most at risk of becoming infected with HIV. Poverty and lack of female empowerment in the traditional society are cited as reasons for girls’ vulnerability to the sexually-transmitted diseases.
Photo Credit: Reuters
Source: NewsTelly
No comments:
Post a Comment