NYT: AIDS, Pregnancy and Poverty Trap Ever More African Girls

[DeepModem Mom]

AIDS, Pregnancy and Poverty Trap Ever More African Girls
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
Published: June 3, 2005


....Africa claims the world's highest adolescent birthrate and the world's lowest share of girls enrolled in primary school.

But for the last 25 years, the trends had been positive. African girls, like girls elsewhere, were marrying later, and a growing percentage were in school.

The AIDS epidemic now threatens to take away those hard-won gains. Orphaned and impoverished by the deaths of parents, girls here are being propelled into sex at shockingly early ages to support themselves, their siblings and, all too often, their own children....

***

With 12 million children orphaned in sub-Saharan Africa because of AIDS, suffering abounds among boys as well as girls.

But orphaned girls tend to fare worse, relief officials say, because they traditionally hold a lower status in African society, are more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and, for anatomical reasons, are more likely than boys to contract H.I.V....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/international/africa/03mozambique.html?hp&ex=1117771200&en=bea76263d9a1c306&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[tk2kewl]

1. they must have offended god

:sarcasm:

[DulceDecorum]

2. Seriously

when was the last time anyone heard any good news coming out of Africa?

It is worse than listening to Ken Starr talk about Bill Clinton.

[RPM]

3. Give * and the Repukes Time

am sure they will get the USA to catch up...

[applegrove]

4. Which is why it is criminal for Bush & the Vatican to be against

condom use and birth control. Women in very poor places often have no choice who they marry. It is negotiated or it involves some food for their family or whatever.

Is it a full third of American dollars that have to be used on 'alternative methods of birth control? like no sex until marriage'. The girls that can afford that luxury are not the ones who should be getting the funding. And sometimes the men they marry are twenty years older than they are and have AIDS.

[Erika]

5. Again, Bush shut off family planning & birth control aid

to Africa.

[applegrove]

6. Partially. That was for the 'voters' back home. I'd like to see these

all practical neocons answer that one.