"Agony Aunts" don't do HIV

Dear Abby, Dear Dolly, Ask Amy - advice columns are always popular in the print media, and South Africa is no exception. The "Agony Aunts" daily solve problems about love, lust, romance and other relationships, but one thing is consistently left off the page - HIV.



Flip through the country's most widely read magazines and one story in the advice columns soon appears to be a theme: girl meets boy, boy meets girl, boy cheats on girl.



A report released on 19 August by The Soul City Institute for Health & Development Communication notes that about 40 percent of letters to agony aunts asked for advice about multiple concurrent partnerships, but less than half received answers that included anything related to HIV and the increased risk of infection that accompanies such relationships.



Research into advice columns in 13 mainstream publications over a three-month period found the columnists chose to focus on the emotional or "moral" issues of concurrent partnerships.

I cannot condone the practice of dating married men. I understand you've gotten used to this way of life, but it's wrong and nothing will make it right.- Advice column in Sunday World, a weekly newspaper

Sue Goldstein, Soul City's senior executive of South African programmes, conceived of the study after listening to a radio call-in show. She said the report highlighted a missed opportunity to address HIV, especially given the target audience of these columns - mainly women in their mid-20s.



South Africa's 2007 antenatal survey showed that women between the ages of 25 and 29, with a prevalence rate of almost 40 percent, were among the hardest hit by HIV. According to UNAIDS, the national prevalence is at 18 percent.



Among the report's recommendations were that columnists talk more about HIV-risk behaviours, avoid moralizing and provide readers with additional resources for further information. It also recommended that editors set guidelines on what "good advice" should or should not include.



In response to the study findings and workshops with journalists, Soul City has developed a programme that pairs major print outlets with HIV-savvy organizations, in the hope that these partnerships will lead to more sensitized coverage of the epidemic.



"[Journalists] argued that people were tired of hearing about HIV, or that their aim was to entertain their audiences," Goldstein told IRIN/PlusNews. "They may be trying to entertain their audiences, but the reality is that these letters are often serious requests for advice, and one often finds young people reading them ... it's critical they be given the appropriate information."



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