Lesbians in South Africa are at risk, say researchers

CLAIMS that South African lesbians are at zero risk for HIV are a myth.

This is according to two foreign researchers speaking at the SA Aids conference in Durban yesterday.

Dr Gemma Oberth, a visiting academic at the UCT Centre for Social Science Research, did a literature review of eight academic studies on lesbians in Southern Africa.

It is thought that because it is bio- logically far less likely that a women will transmit HIV to another women, lesbians are unlikely to have HIV.

“But this is not the reality [in South Africa], Oberth said.

She explained that this was because “lesbian sex, injecting drug use, rape, sex with males and sex for financial survival were all interlinked”.

Oberth said that in one study, 20% of lesbians believed they had ac- quired HIV from a female partner, and said they had never had a male partner or taken drugs, although the women did not know if they were born with HIV.

Also speaking at the event, Phoebe Kisubi, from the Netherlands, said her survey of 209 South African lesbian women from Cape Town and Johannesburg last year revealed a 9% HIV rate. – Katharine Child