Pregnancy Scarier than HIV. 08/03/09

CHILDREN are more terrified of getting pregnant than of contracting HIV — because the virus is invisible but pregnancy is not.

This is one of a host of shocking findings in a recent study in Western Cape titled: “Growing up in the ‘New’ South Africa: Childhood and Adolescence in Post-Apartheid Cape Town”.

Data for the study were derived from an earlier survey of more than 5000 adolescents living in the Cape metropole. The data from that study were augmented by information provided by 120 youngsters from Fish Hoek, a predominantly white neighbourhood, Ocean View, a coloured area, and Masiphumelele, a black informal settlement.

“Knowledge of HIV-Aids plays almost no role in shaping sexual behaviour; it is pregnancy that girls fear and which attracts stigma,” the study found.

Researcher Dr Rachel Bray said most white and coloured children did not consider themselves at high risk of contracting HIV, despite intensive HIV-Aids education.

The study revealed that only a few teenagers managed to combine having a healthy sexual relationship and thriving at school.

It was found that those who were sexually active suffered academically, and that children who abstained from sex found it difficult to resist peer pressure and maintain their stance.

“There are some differences between rich and poor neighbourhoods, but teenagers in different parts of the study site think and behave in broadly similar ways.”

Sex, it was found, is “bound up with a rebellion against parental authority”, and with style and status.

For girls in all areas — rich and poor — consumerist aspirations are the same. Designer labels and expensive clothes are crucial to them.

Though rich girls receive financial support from their parents, girls in the poorer areas, such as Ocean View and Masiphumelele, receive their clothing and gifts from the boys and men with whom they have sex.

Older boys, and men with jobs, are sought after because they are able to provide for their girlfriends. Girls also pursue married men.

Girls usually want money from a relationship.

“I can’t go out with someone who’s still at school because he’s not going to provide for me,” said Zanele, 17, from Masiphumelele. “When I need jeans, who’s gonna buy jeans for me? I have to have someone who’s working.”

Owning brand-name products and having the latest cellphone are crucial for cultivating sex appeal, many teenage girls believe.

“Some young people living in these areas told us that girls want nothing to do with boys who do not have money,” the study reported.

“They feel that such boys are ‘not worth going out with’.

“They said girls unashamedly use boys in this respect.”

Because boys provide for them financially, girls feel indebted and obliged to have sex with them.

This, according to the study, makes them more vulnerable to the brutality and violence that can accompany transactional sex.

The study also found that:

- Most adolescents in all areas thought spending quality time with their family was more important than anything else;

- Coloured children were aware that they did not have as many privileges as white children and felt that they had fewer opportunities than black children — many were not aware of how affirmative action affects them; and

- Black families put great emphasis on education and encouraged children to complete matric and study further.

The “Growing up” study is described as the first major comparative study of childhoods in South Africa since 1986.

“By attending to the similarities and differences between childhood experiences in the different neighbourhoods, we comment on aspects of the social, cultural, political, economic and historical terrain that constrain or enhance young people’s efforts to bolster their well-being,” said Bray.