Sexual abuse of young girls fuels HIV/AIDS epidemic

Widespread sexual abuse of young girls could stall progress in HIV/AIDS prevention among young Zambian adults, a new report has warned. A report by Human Rights Watch on Tuesday found that abuses of the rights of girls, particularly sexual violence and other sexual abuse, directly contributed to the disparities of HIV prevalence between men and women. "In many countries of eastern and southern Africa, HIV prevalence among girls under age eighteen is four to seven times higher than among boys the same age," the report said. The report titled,'Suffering in Silence: Human Rights Abuses and HIV Transmission to Girls in Zambia', documents several categories of abuse that increase girls' risk of HIV infection. Firstly, the sexual assault of girls by family members, especially "the shocking and all too common practice of abuse of orphan girls by men who are their guardians," the report noted. But the community and law enforcement agencies were often complicit in attempting to hide this type of abuse. "The reality when the breadwinner is responsible, is that families themselves seek to cover up [sexual abuse]. If the breadwinner ends up in prison, the family has to deal with all the financial implications. So its the economic realities and the shame and stigma associated with it," Janet Fleischman, director for Africa Division of Human Rights Watch and author of the report, told PlusNews. Secondly, orphaned girls who were heads of households or were desperately poor, had few options other than trading sex for survival. "They may have no recourse but to trade sex for survival - their own survival and sometimes that of their siblings - and they are rarely able to negotiate safer sex," Fleischman noted. Finally, the abuse of girls who lived on the street had become a growing problem. "The number of street children is likely to increase even more, because of the growing numbers of children being orphaned due to parents dying of AIDS," the report said. The "subordinate" social and legal status of women and girls made it difficult for them to negotiate safer sex and to take steps to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). According to the report, one of the key problems in the government's response was the failure of the criminal justice system to deal with sexual abuse. Human Rights Watch called for the government to intensify training on addressing sexual abuse for police and court officials, to strengthen victim support units of the police, and to ensure rigorous prosecution of these crimes. Fleischman said: "The highest political level has to make it clear that it is in the national interest for such cases to be handled appropriately." The United Nations had to engage in high-profile advocacy about the link between human rights abuses and HIV transmission to girls in Zambia, ensuring that UN Children's Fund programmes reflected the special protection needs of girls, the report suggested. The link between sexual abuse and HIV/AIDS had not received the attention it merited, despite a spate of media reports declaring women and young girls the faces of the epidemic," she added. Preventing the sexual abuse of young girls now had to move "out of the realm of rhetoric and into the reality" of HIV/AIDS programming. "Its quite do-able, if there's political will and resources to back it up," Fleischman said. The full report IRIN report on a project treating street children and child sex workers with STDs