Transactional Sex With “Sugar Daddies” among Female Preparatory Students: HIV Risk Assessment in Hawassa Town, Ethiopia Presenter- Liyuwork M. Dana (BSc, MPH in RH) December 7, 2011

Background In Ethiopia, young women have almost double HIV infection rate than their men counter parts. Transactional sex with older men is one of the causes that fuel the spread of HIV. Rationale : – Little is known about transactional sex with older men in the face of HIV among female students. – Ability of negotiating safe sex practice is relatively less. – Interventions at young age will save the generation to come.

Objective Assessed the magnitude and factors associate transactional sex with “sugar daddies” in the face of HIV infection. Assessed HIV risk sexual behaviors of female preparatory students.

Methodology Study Design and Period Cross-sectional (Quan + Qual) from Dec to Jan Study Population and sampling Quantitative study: randomly selected girls from preparatory schools.

Method cont... Qualitative study: In-depth interviews with purposively selected female students who date “sugar daddies”. Ethical consideration Data were collected after obtaining verbal consent from each participant & written consent from schools.

Result Ten girls who date “sugar daddies” for qualitative study. 620 female students participated for quantitative study with 97.8% response rate. 130 (21%) ever had sex before the survey. Magnitude of transactional sex with “sugar daddies”

Result cont...

Reason of sex with “sugar daddies” 78.9% students involved to get top-up. Only 9.3% use the money for school fees, others to buy luxuries. Quali finding: All agreed that their primary motivation is financial gain, some said peer pressure. Amount of money they expect ranges USD ≈

Result cont... MSP/Sexual networking 66 (93%) had MSP sequentially & dated in average of 5 partners. 35% had more than one sugar daddy partner at a time. 56 (78.9%) had partner other than “sugar daddies”. Of those only 5 (8.9%) of their partners know it. Majority in qualitative part said they had concurrent sexual r/n with “sugar daddies” & young school boys.

one of a 17 years students said : “....I have a boy friend. He is a third year university student. He is the one that I am serious with……we do sex without condom. For instance, recently he came here to say goodbye as he was going to Addis Ababa to see his family. At that time, we both didn’t have condom, so we did sex without.”

Fig 2 - Condom use while having sex with “sugar daddies”. 19 (26.8%) did not negotiate to use condom (for more money, scared to ask). Most of interviewed participants also agreed on it. Result cont... Condom use

Result cont... Substance use 51 (71.8%) use at least one type of substances. Quali – Substance use as common practice As interviewed respondents explained “sugar daddies” wants to get them really drunk and get other substances. Sex with “sugar daddies” showed no significant association with comprehensive HIV knowledge.

Conclusion Young girls in Hawassa are at risk of HIV because of their risky sexual behavior. The sexual networking of girls who date “sugar daddies’ put other boys & their sexual partners at risk of HIV which put the youth at risk. Despite good knowledge on HIV, only few use condom consistently. Most of them agreed current benefits outweigh later consequences.

Recommendation Family, schools & community need collaboration to fight transactional sex with sugar daddies. Programs designed to reduce sexual risk of young people need to account for the transactional nature of sexual relationship with older men.

I THANK YOU!! ZERO TRANSACTIONAL SEX WITH “SUGAR DADDIES”, ZERO HIV INFECTION AMONG YOUNG & COMING GENERATION!!!!!!