Save our children from sugar daddies

AS THE adage “the Devil loves idle hands” goes, it is no secret that, during the school holidays and the festive season, many young people will be tempted to experiment with new and dangerous things.

This includes substance and alcohol abuse; and unprotected sex, which could have adverse and longlasting effects on their lives.

Of concern to the government is that among those who are rubbing their hands with glee during this period and beyond are older men – commonly known as “sugar daddies” – who use their resources to prey on these young, poor and vulnerable girls, for sex.

While it is easy to dismiss the sugar daddy issue as an “old subject”, for as long as this vicious cycle of the destruction of young lives by unscrupulous old men continues, efforts to combat the scourge of the spread of HIV infections will not bear the desired fruit of an HIV-free generation.

Out of these dangerous liaisons of inter-generational sex, the young women derive money, which might be spent on necessities such as food and school fees and all things fashionable, such as fancy cellphones, expensive clothes and hairstyles.

For these young people, such trappings could make life seem rosy and exciting. But this is only temporary.

The frightening and often hidden feature of these exploitative relationships is the inability of younger women to negotiate safer sexual practices with these older and moneyed sugar daddies – and the dire consequences this has on the women’s lives in the long run.

Research conducted by the Centre for the Aids Programme Research in South Africa (Caprisa) a few years ago showed a disturbing trend of how girl children were particularly susceptible to contracting HIV from older men.

The study tells us that almost all HIV-negative boys and girls who enter school finish Grade 7 still HIV-negative.

According to the study, by the time they complete Grade 12, about 7 to 10 percent of girls are HIV-positive. Yet the boys have remained HIVnegative. The study says that this is because the girls are not sleeping with boys of the same age but are getting infected by the older generation.

Protection

So, when they enter university, 10 percent of the girls are HIV-positive, the study shows. But by the time they finish their honours degrees after four years, there is 25 percent HIV-positivity among both boys and girls, which means they have infected each other.

The government always encourages abstinence from sex for as long as possible – until one is physically and psychologically ready to deal with the consequences.

For those who cannot abstain from sex, we encourage the use of dual protection: medical male circumcision and the use of condoms during every episode of sexual contact for men, combined with the use of female contraceptive methods.

This ensures protection against both sexually transmitted infections – including HIV – and unwanted pregnancies.

Notably, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health recently launched the Adolescent and Youth User-Friendly Health Initiative at Swart Umfolozi Clinic in Zululand.

This campaign aims to change staff attitudes of certain health workers who tend to judge young people who visit health care facilities to seek reproductive health services.

In launching this initiative, the MEC for Health, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, echoed the sentiments of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa during 2015 World Aids Day when he said: ‘The number of new HIV infections is still extremely high, particularly among young women and girls.

“We are told that more than 2 300 girls and young women between the ages of 15 and 24 become infected with HIV each week.”

The Department of Health has a duty to ensure our programmes respond to the needs of the youth, especially young girls. Health workers need to understand that if the youth are not treated in a way that makes them feel welcome to seek health services they will rely on uninformed advice or the help of their peers – usually with disastrous consequences.

Therefore, the solution to curbing the rising rate of teenage pregnancy, the spread of sexual transmitted diseases and illegal abortions lies, to a considerable extent, with the establishment of Youth and Adolescent Friendly Health Institutions.

As a society, we need to talk frankly to our children about the realities of having unprotected sex, as well as bring to their attention the reproductive health options available to them.

Society can no longer afford to accept the behaviour of sugar daddies as the norm, while the future of our children wilts away. We need to reject them as a societal taboo.

For young people, the future of this country, to thrive, we need to rid our society of such scourges. This is a call to action for all men to rise up and say: “Not in my name will poor and vulnerable children be taken advantage of.”

Knowledge

We can do it by encouraging abstinence and teaching our children about the dangers of sugar daddies. If that fails, we can do it by promoting dual protection.

We can do it by encouraging our children to adopt health-seeking behaviour, by visiting health facilities that are friendly and welcoming to them at all times.

Indeed, we can do it by empowering our children with knowledge so that they are aware of the dangers of materialism, substance and alcohol abuse, and of getting involved with older men.

Mkhwanazi is the spokesman for the KZN Department of Health.