South Africa: Alarming Rate of HIV among School going Girls
Johannesburg---As many as 28 percent of South Africa’s schoolgirls are HIV positive as compared to only four percent of their male counterparts, a shocking statistics the country’s health minister condemns on the “sugar daddies” trend.
Aaron Motsoaledi, called for an end to the trend of young girls involvement with sugar daddies Thursday, during the unveiling of the “destroyed my Soul” report which reveals of a shocking statistics of sexuality among the country’s youthful population.
It is clear that it is not young boys who are sleeping with these girls. It is old men," the Sowetan newspaper quoted Motsoaledi as saying.
“We can no longer live like that," he said.
The minister also revealed that 94,000 South African schoolgirls fell pregnant in 2011, with some aged as young as 10.
Although the number of cases resulting in death has sharply declined over the recent past in the country, South Africa has one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rate in the world.
Official figures show that six million people in South Africa live with HIV in a population of 50 million. The country’s anti-retroviral programme ranks as largest in the world, with some 1.7 million people being served by the life-prolonging treatment.
Earlier this month US scientists said they had cured a baby born with HIV for the first time, a case that could lead to significant advancements in finding a cure.
In July last year a study carried out by France’s National Agency for AIDS Research already identified a “functional” cure in a group of adult patients who had received very early and aggressive treatment within the first 10 weeks after infection.
DRC: Sexual Violence on the Rise Warns UN
Kinshasa--The United Nations has warned of a rise in sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the restive region that has been termed as one of the most dangerous places in the world for women.
The insight comes as investigators from the world body and human rights groups say they have evidence linking the Congolese soldiers with recent sexual violations in the country’s eastern region.
In December, the UN said it had documented at least 126 rapes carried out by government soldiers in the town of Minova, south of the eastern capital of Goma, who were fleeing a rebel offensive from the M23 rebels.
Earlier this month the UN peace mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, has threatened to stop supporting the unidentified two units within the Congolese army accused in the mass rape, unless swift legal actions were taken against them before the end of March.
"Since nothing sufficient has happened at this stage we have already put two units of the armed forces of Congo on notice that if they do not act promptly we shall cease supporting them," a UN official in New York was quoted by the BBC on condition of anonymity.
Armed groups fighting in eastern DR Congo often use rape as a weapon, with cases where they pillage on communities in the region and capture young girls and women for sexual slavery.
Fighting in eastern Congo has been fixed around control of the area’s vast mineral deposits, pitting various armed groups and countries accused in the over two decades plundering.
Some 800,000 people have fled the most recent unrest which started last April after the M23 fighters mutinied from the national army aggrieved over failed promises by President Joseph Kabila government.