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Resources Opinion: having our say Poster Power: Billboards in Uganda Take Aim at Sugar Daddies | Poster Power: Billboards in Uganda Take Aim at Sugar Daddies |
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| By Anurita Bains | |
| Sunday, 06 April 2008 | |
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It took a street billboard, not the busy traffic or music blaring from the bars, to shake me out of my post-flight daze. We were driving into Kampala from the airport, and there it was – a massive ad about HIV/AIDS. After reports last year that billboards promoting A, B and C (abstinence, being faithful and condoms) in Uganda had been replaced by abstinence-only ones, I was on the look-out for street ads. But what I saw, as we rounded the city traffic circle, was entirely unexpected. On the billboard was a middle-aged African man, professionally dressed and smiling. The line below read: Would you let this man be with your teenage daughter?  I asked a friend sitting beside me if she had seen it too. She looked as shocked as I felt, and began searching for her camera so we could prove that our eyes weren’t playing tricks on us. It became clear during the next few days in Kampala that taking a picture to prove what we had seen was unnecessary. The entire city is plastered with the “Sugar Daddy billboards.” Launched by Population Service International (PSI), a social-marketing NGO known primarily for its promotion and distribution of condoms, and supported by the Uganda Ministry of Health and YouthAIDS, the campaign has a simple message: Cross generational sex stops with you. Challenging the socially-accepted norm of older men being in relationships with younger women is sparking debate (the campaign defines cross-generational sex as a non-marital relationship between a young woman aged between 15 and 24 years, and a man at least 10 years her senior). In Uganda, women between the ages of 15 and 24 years are four times more likely to be HIV-positive than their male peers. Cross-generational sex, or the sugar daddy phenomenon, has long been cited as an explanation for the shockingly high HIV prevalence among young women (of the 15-24 year olds living with HIV in Africa, 76% are female). Yet challenging cross-generational sexual relations has rarely featured in prevention campaigns. Until now, behaviour-change efforts and prevention campaigns have almost exclusively focused on the ABC paradigm (and sometimes not even the “C”). We know there are many factors – not just A, B and C – that put women at risk of HIV, yet messaging is focused on telling young women what to do and how to behave (Abstain! If you must, be faithful! And if you really must, use a condom!). That is why the Sugar Daddy billboards in Kampala are so refreshing – they don’t place blame on the woman, and they don’t assume that the responsibility to change lies solely with the woman. Recent studies on cross-generational sex confirm what many know – that cross-generational relations are about economic disparities, unequal power dynamics and gender inequality. The Uganda Demographic Health Survey of 2000/01 found that for more than 70 per cent of women aged 15 to 24, their first sexual partner was three or more years older; 11 per cent reported that their first sexual partner was 10 or more years older. But there is much that is unexpected in the studies too: that many young women face peer pressure to find a Sugar Daddy, and that community members often overlook and sometimes even approve of these relation¬ships. A colleague in Uganda told me that some families quietly encourage these relationships because of the financial gain – having an older partner with money means the young woman will be less of a burden on her family. It was four years ago that the UN Secretary General’s Task Force on Women, Girls and AIDS in Southern Africa recommended that we “collapse the bridge of infection” between older men and younger women and create awareness campaigns on the “inappropriate, abusive and often illegal character of relationships between older men and teenage girls, promoting the shaming of ‘sugar daddies.’” Will a billboard reduce HIV infection among young women? Probably not. The truth is, we know very little about how to change societal norms and individual behaviour, especially when it comes to HIV/AIDS. But drawing attention in a public forum to an issue as relevant and controversial as cross-generational relationships seems like an awfully good place to start. Bookmark this article with any of these social bookmarking sites:           |
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