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Young People in
Danger
Young people have sex
Sexual
activity begins in adolescence for the majority of people. In many countries, unmarried girls
and boys are sexually active before the age of 15. Recent surveys
of boys aged 15
to 19 in Brazil, Hungary and Kenya, for example, found that more than a quarter
reported having sex before they were 15. A study in Bangladesh found that 88 per cent of
unmarried urban boys and 35 per cent of unmarried urban girls had engaged in
sexual activity by the time they were 18. In rural Bangladesh, those figures were 38 per cent
for boys and 6 per cent for girls.
Young people lack information
New studies
from across the globe have established that the
vast majority of young people have no idea
how HIV/AIDS is transmitted or how to
protect themselves from the disease. In countries
with generalized HIV epidemics, such as
Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial
Guinea, Lesotho and Sierra Leone, more than 80
per cent of young women aged 15 to 24 do not
have sufficient knowledge about HIV. In Somalia,
only 26 per cent of girls have heard of AIDS;
only 1 per cent know how to avoid infection.
In Ukraine, although 99 per cent of girls had
heard of AIDS, only 9 per cent could correctly
identify the three primary ways of avoiding
sexual transmission (see
box, above). Two thirds
of young people in their last year of primary
school in Botswana thought they could tell if
someone was infected with HIV by looking at them. By
secondary school, a fifth of the pupils still believed they could screen out
risky partners by
looks alone. This misinformation is especially
dangerous in a country where one in three of
their potential sex partners is infected with HIV.
Misconceptions about HIV/AIDS are widespread among young
people. They vary from one culture to another,
and particular rumors gain currency in some
populations both on how HIV is spread (by mosquito
bites or witchcraft, for example) and on how
it can be avoided (by eating a certain fish, for
example, or having sex with a virgin). Surveys from
40 countries indicate that more than 50 per
cent of young people aged 15 to 24 harbor
serious misconceptions about how HIV/AIDS is
transmitted.
Many young people are at especially high risk Young people who inject drugs Injecting
drug use (IDU) is one of the many addictions
that often begin during adolescence. IDU among
young people, especially young men, has
increased dramatically in recent years. Both boys
and girls are vulnerable to sexual violence,
including abuse and exploitation, but greater
numbers of girls and young women are victimized.
Abusers are unlikely to use a condom, and the cuts
and tears that result from forced sex increase
the likelihood of HIV infection.
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