AIDS group suggests worrying attitudes among youth

A small-scale discussion group on youths' attitudes to sexuality and HIV/AIDS by the Kenya AIDS Intervention Prevention Project Group (KAIPPG) in Kakamega, western Kenya, has suggested that young Kenyans remain seriously misinformed about AIDS and that many continue to engage in unsafe sexual practices.

Alarmingly, volunteer staff with the project found that some people believed that condoms had been infected with the AIDS virus in an effort to eradicate Africans, the group warned in a report newly posted on the website of the OneWorld network, a community of over 1,000 organisations working for social justice worldwide - see http://www.oneworld.org

The widespread distribution of free or affordable condoms is a key element of the Kenyan government's strategy to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

At the end of 2001, an estimated 40 million people globally were living with HIV, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic is now the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa, according to UNAIDS.

"In many parts of the developing world, the majority of new infections occurred in young adults, with young women especially vulnerable," it stated.

"The estimated 3.4 million new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa in the past year mean that 28.1 million Africans now live with the virus. Without adequate treatment and care, most of them will not survive the next decade," UNAIDS reported earlier this month - see http://www.unaids.org

About one-third of those currently living with HIV/AIDS are aged 15-24 years, most of whom do not know they are carrying the virus, and many millions more know nothing or too little about HIV to protect themselves against it, it added. In that context, addressing youth attitudes to sex and HIV/AIDS takes on greatly increased significance.

The young people involved in the KAIPPG exercise - a small and informal discussion group, yet suggestive of attitudes that may be more widespread - had generally learned what they did know about sex and sexuality, sexually-transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS from their friends, and believed it was impossible to have discussions on such themes with their parents, according to project workers.

Kenya AIDS Intervention Prevention Project Group (KAIPPG), a partner organisation in the One World network, is a community based volunteer organisation in Kakamega, dedicated to fighting poverty and HIV/AIDS.

On AIDS, the youths interviewed had very general ideas about the disease - that it spreads through exchange of bodily fluids and that sex was the most common way of contracting it, KAIPPG stated.

However, among the myths picked up by project workers from the discussion were that: having sex with younger partners can avoid sexually transmitted infections and AIDS; that withdrawal before ejaculation and cleaning the private parts with a tissue can protect against AIDS; that free condoms [distributed by the government] have been smeared with the AIDS virus to eradicate Africans; and that taking unprescribed antibiotics immediately after sex would prevent infection with sexually-transmitted diseases.

Some of the youths said they had had unprotected sex, sometimes with multiple partners, and project workers said they detected among some a degree of fatalism about HIV/AIDS infection and death more generally.

Among the conclusions were that youths were engaging in sex but had vague ideas about sexuality and HIV/AIDS; that most of their myths came from friends and, where they had no answers to questions about HIV/AIDS, they tended to hold existing views and ignore the danger; and that, when they got useful, accurate information on the dangers of HIV/AIDS, they understood the seriousness of the issue.

The conclusion from Kenya AIDS Intervention Prevention Project Group was that youths urgently need education in sexuality and HIV/AIDS.