Sexual Violence Aimed at Girls in Swaziland: Link To High HIV/AIDS

This morning Mike Todd sent me a new report from the Kaiser Network about sexual violence against girls, including young children. This is exactly Adanna's story, who is the main character in the novel I wrote entitled, Scared. Writing about these experiences caused the publisher to put a 'warning label' in the book. It's not graphic by any means, just real. The sad thing is that these girls suffer in more ways than anyone could ever write about. 

We'll have a vision trip to Swaziland in the fall. Please let me know if you're interested in going.

"A new report commissioned by UNICEF and CDC and recently published in the journal Lancet found that one in three girls in Swaziland has experienced sexual violence by age 18, which can lead to serious health issues such as HIV, IRIN/PlusNews reports. In addition, the researchers found that 22% of Swazi women between ages 15 and 24 are HIV-positive, noting that sexual violence could be a common HIV transmission mode among women in high-burden countries such as Swaziland. 

Sexual violence was defined as forced sex, coerced sex and forced touching. Five percent of girls had experienced forced sex before age 18, and coerced intercourse was reported by 9% of girls, according to the report. In addition, almost 90% of girls who had experienced sexual violence said that it first occurred between ages 13 and 17. The authors recommended that efforts to address issues surrounding sexual violence should "focus on prevention of perpetration by men of sexual violence, and since sexual- and intimate-partner violence might have common roots, local and national initiatives could be reviewed, adapted and scaled up for this purpose." According to the researchers, three-quarters of the boys and men who perpetrated the sexual violence were related or known to the girls (IRIN/PlusNews, 5/13)."

Kaiser article here.