Report on the Global HIV/AIDS epidemic

Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic - June 2000

1I,

Figure 15.

Casual sex and condom use, by educational status,
Mozambique

60
50 -0
S40
ac
a)
a)
30
0
C_
L
a)
y 20
0
a
Uf)
10
0 -
O casual sex in the past year
D condom use at last casual sex

0-2

3-6 7-9
number of years respondent spent in school

10+

/

Source: Agha S, et al. The promotion of safer sex among high-risk individuals in Mozambique, Population
Services International, USA, 1999
education women had, the less casual sex they had. These results suggest that
the best-educated people in the countries hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic may
be shifting towards less risky behaviour. If this is true, it has encouraging implications for the future course of the epidemic.
The UNAIDS analysis did not take into account the content of the school curriculum with regard to life skills or HIV. Carefully designed studies to evaluate the
effect of sex education programmes in school on sexual behaviour and exposure
to HIV are now under way in several African countries. Experience has already
shown, however, that when AIDS prevention programmes include a strong schoolbased awareness and skills training component, schooling can encourage safe
behaviour. In Uganda, as Figure 16 shows, although the prevalence of HIV infection among young pregnant women rose with level of education in the earlier years
of the epidemic, the trend has been reversed in more recent years. While falling
HIV infection rates have been seen in young women of all educational levels, the
fall has been most dramatic among the better educated. Among young women
with a secondary education, the infection rate in 1995-1997 was nearly half that in
the early 1990s.
One thing is clear: education and information are fundamental human rights. When
children and young people are denied the basic information, education and skills to
deal with HIV - whether because of religious values, social mores or cultural prefS erences - they are that much less empowered to reduce their own risk of infection.

/1 -

44