Risky Sexual Behaviour

August 13, 2009 at 7:05 pm · Filed under Zimbabwe and tagged: AIDS, HIV, language, prevention, youth

Risky sexual behaviour has a language of its own on the University of Zimbabwe’s campus in Harare, PlusNews reports. When female students arrive, they join an informal sorority known as the “university spinster association”, or USA, while their male counterparts are inducted into the “university bachelor association”, or UBA. Their sexual networks are coded in a slew of slang that, according to University of Pretoria researcher Tsitsi Masvawure, masks high-risk behaviours, including multiple concurrent partnerships and cross-generational sex, which facilitate the spread of sexually transmitted infections and HIV.

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85198

Story ideas:

The researcher found that older female students often engage in concurrent sexual relationships to secure access to luxury goods. Her extensive interviews also found that younger male students helped connect female friends with wealthier, older men. See if similar studies have been done at universities in your country and, if so, what the findings were. If they were done a while ago, you could follow up with an interview with the researchers about the study.

You could ask students, university authorities and others connected with places of residential study how they think this study done at the University of Zimbabwe compares with attitudes and behaviour at their university.

What implications do all these findings have on HIV education and prevention campaigns? Are those involved in running campaigns updating themselves / keeping in touch with what’s happening on campus? How involved are students themselves in prevention campaigns / how involved would they like to be?

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