Sugar Daddy Syndrome

AFRICA: The 'sugar daddy' phenomenon
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks - July 24, 2003
JOHANNESBURG, 24 July (IRIN) - Three teenage girls from a local high school in Johannesburg - South Africa's economic hub - were gathered in a local NGO office on Wednesday after watching an educational play on HIV/AIDS. The topic of discussion had generated a heated debate among the girls, and they were eager to share their thoughts on "sugar daddies".
"Girls my age are doing it, for sure. It's not a big deal anymore. I know it's not a good idea, but if you're getting everything you want from him, you don't think about other things," said 17-year-old Busi, who wanted to remain anonymous.
Although they were reluctant to talk about their experiences, all the girls knew someone who was involved with an older man. These older sexual partners are referred to as sugar daddies, but this type of relationship is anything but sweet.
Sexual relationships between older men and teenage girls play a significant role in the high HIV infection rate among young women in sub-Saharan Africa. But for the people involved in these relationships, the risk of HIV/AIDS is not a priority.

and from another source
"The trick is to get as much money as you can first, before you have sex, because he might run away," Berman quoted one teenage girl in Kenya as saying. Mercy Amba Oduyoye, director of the Institute of Women, Religion, and Culture in Ghana, said the problem stems from societies dominated by males, and that the girls are coerced - even if they're getting money.
British statistician Simon Gregson has devised some rudimentary mathematical models to estimate the effects of cross-generational sex on a country's HIV prevalence, finding that curbing the phenomenon would tend to bring down transmissions. In theory, if people limited sex partners only to people exactly their same age, all the world's sexually transmitted diseases would end after the latest infected generation dies.

just say no thank-you
---In Geneva, Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, says Zimbabwe isn't the only place where teen liaisons with older men are driving the epidemic. He also cites Botswana, Kenya, Zambia and South Africa, and he praises the SHAZ approach, saying it's "absolutely the right thing."
But SHAZ faces major obstacles.

The sugar daddy is part of a cultural tradition predating the onslaught of HIV, so some families have turned a blind eye to such relationships. For AIDS orphans with hungry bellies to fill and siblings to care for, the cycle may be even tougher to break.

"It's a problem that everybody's aware of and has been trying to tackle," says Imelda Mudekunye, a social worker in Harare who is project coordinator of SHAZ. But, she adds, "how do you say to people, 'Stop having the relationship,' when they want food on the table. It's a tradeoff between having the risk of AIDS in 15 years and having an empty stomach now."
Girls also obtain little luxuries like clothes, cosmetics or a meal of chicken and chips at Nando's, a popular Harare fast-food eatery, Ms. Mudekunye says. "Peer pressure comes in," she notes. "Young people in nice clothes get to hang out. Young girls who are poor want that too."