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Thu 8 Jan, 2004 09:31 pm
One of the most ignored points about Africa is the international prostitution that goes on in Africa. For the most part when international prostitution is mention, the Asian nations are the ones primarily mention but I am a witness to the prostitution that takes place in Africa. I spent three months in Kenya back in 1994, Kenya is a great country, I was in the city of Mombassa and we made a trip down to Nairobi as well. While in Kenya, I witnessed people from all over the world vacationing there and using the Kenyans, both men and women as prostitutes. One of the strangest things I seen was old white women from Europe who would come there as explained to me by a Kenyan and use the young Kenyan men as boy toys. I witness this with my own eyes, these old women walking through the hotel day after day with young African men.
Recently there was an attack on an Israeli hotel in Mombassa, most people never stopped to ask themselves why Israeli's have a hotel in Mombassa. They too travel to Kenya for vacations or holiday as they call it and use the local men and women for prostitution. I say all this as a preface to the article below that speaks about "Sugar Daddies" an euphemism for white men from Europe for the most part that are enticing young African women to have sex with them and promising to pay there school tuition but simultaneously spreading the HIV virus in poor African nations. Read and respond.
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'Sugar daddies' fuelling HIV spread
Agnes Nalwadda is a 17-year-old student living in a small village in Uganda.
Like many teenagers in her village, she struggles to pay her school fees.
A rich man has offered to pay for her education. However, in return Agnes must sleep with him.
"The man told me he would pay my school fees and everything I want," she told the BBC.
Agnes is not alone. Nine out of 12 girls in her class say they have been approached by so-called "sugar daddies".
"He told me he would pay for my school fees, pay for me to go on holidays to go to other countries" says one girl.
"When you go to his place, you have sex with him," says another girl.
HIV threat
Their teacher Daniel Okello says many of these sugar daddies are infected with HIV.
Girls who agree to have sex with these men are at risk of catching the disease.
However, many are trapped in a cycle of poverty and cycle and feel unable to speak out.
"The men don't have any protective measures," he says.
"They don't think about it. It is the girls who are at risk not the sugar daddies and the girls don't have any voice."
A local organisation called Straight Talk is helping to spread the word about sugar daddies and HIV.
It has staged marches through villages and towns in Uganda to inform teenagers about the risks.
It has already helped to convince at least one teenage girl not to strike a deal with a local sugar daddy.
"They advise us to stay safe and to stay away from those sugar daddies," says Agnes.
She has taken their advice on board. Agnes now does odd jobs to pay her school fees
Another of example of the wealthy exploiting the poor. It's very sad. A lot of the Asian countries you mention have taken steps to stop the practise. I hope it can happen in Africa as well.
Faheem, Most third world countries have active prostitution, because many do not have any skills for labor, but must feed themselves and their family. It's happened in most developed countries at one time or another, and probably still exist in most of them. HIV/AIDS have not reduced prostitution, but many countries have now outlawed the oldest profession in attempts to control its spread of disease. Africa is a special case, where older men take advantage of young girls and women, and force themselves on them with physical force. Most women are helpless. Many African countries have a life expectancy of less than forty years because of the uncontolled spread of HIV/AIDS, and the lack of drugs. Many drug companies in the US are trying to sell HIV/AIDs drugs at reduced cost, but many are too poor to take advantage of the lower prices. President Bush promised 15 billion dollars in aid to African countries to help purchase the drugs, but I'm not sure if any of those grants have reached Africa.
Quote:While in Kenya, I witnessed people from all over the world vacationing there and using the Kenyans, both men and women as prostitutes. One of the strangest things I seen was old white women from Europe who would come there as explained to me by a Kenyan and use the young Kenyan men as boy toys. I witness this with my own eyes, these old women walking through the hotel day after day with young African men.
Based on the way you phrase this it is all the fault and responsibility of the whites. People don't get used they are selling their services. Prostitution the oldest profession is very open in Africa and the spread of aids is more the responsibility of the sexual mores of those people that the white visitors. It's too easy to place the blame on others.
IMO as long as you have a problem stemming from sex, anywhere at anytime, it's going to be a problem.
People are going to have sex. Lots of it. Nothing short of neutering will stop it.
I think that what should be noted is the fact that Africa has been poor, by modern western standards and definition, for thousands of years. However, this sexual promiscuity is a relatively recent phenomenon. This is not to suggest that there were not prostitutes in African history, for I am sure there was. My point is that this phenomenon was not likely rampant among young girls.
As Faheem astutely noted, there is a tremendous economic link to this current day phenomenon, yet, Africa has always been poor, so why NOW? The answer, in my belief, is the spread of WESTERN models of culture and economics, which devalue and usurp the traditional practices of Africans as well as others and leads to this kind of activity.
Africans survived thousands of years before European influence. However, post contact and cultural and economic imperialism has lead to the demise of the ability to survive and maintain traditional morals and ethics. For example, capitalism is a concept that creates equal and opposite extremes of wealth. Originally African were very communal or hunters and gathers. They met their survival needs, unless nature deprived them through drought, floods or whatever. Much of these lifestyles were usurped during colonization, which came with a new culture, economic and political systems. Central to this was private ownership, which usurped communal economics. Thus, as resources rich land came under the control of the few, it took away opportunities for survival for many and forced them into a dependency on the owners of capital, who then exploited them.
Moreover, homosexuality and perverted acts of pleasure, was extreme taboo in African culture. Even in the African American community, such did not become prevalent until many had assimilated into the dominant culture. Western civilization has traditionally been the biggest spreader of diseases over the last 500 years. Their diseases nearly exterminated the natives of The Americas. Those diseases incubated in the urban density and squalor of European cities and the promiscuity of their behavior. Western imperialism is simply spreading pestilence.
Re: Sugar Daddies spreading HIV in Africa.
Faheem wrote:One of the most ignored points about Africa is the international prostitution that goes on in Africa. For the most part when international prostitution is mention, the Asian nations are the ones primarily mention but I am a witness to the prostitution that takes place in Africa. I spent three months in Kenya back in 1994, Kenya is a great country, I was in the city of Mombassa and we made a trip down to Nairobi as well. While in Kenya, I witnessed people from all over the world vacationing there and using the Kenyans, both men and women as prostitutes. One of the strangest things I seen was old white women from Europe who would come there as explained to me by a Kenyan and use the young Kenyan men as boy toys. I witness this with my own eyes, these old women walking through the hotel day after day with young African men.
Recently there was an attack on an Israeli hotel in Mombassa, most people never stopped to ask themselves why Israeli's have a hotel in Mombassa. They too travel to Kenya for vacations or holiday as they call it and use the local men and women for prostitution. I say all this as a preface to the article below that speaks about "Sugar Daddies" an euphemism for white men from Europe for the most part that are enticing young African women to have sex with them and promising to pay there school tuition but simultaneously spreading the HIV virus in poor African nations. Read and respond.
=========================
'Sugar daddies' fuelling HIV spread
Agnes Nalwadda is a 17-year-old student living in a small village in Uganda.
Like many teenagers in her village, she struggles to pay her school fees.
A rich man has offered to pay for her education. However, in return Agnes must sleep with him.
"The man told me he would pay my school fees and everything I want," she told the BBC.
Agnes is not alone. Nine out of 12 girls in her class say they have been approached by so-called "sugar daddy"
So, are you trying to blame the AIDS epidemic that's going on in Africa on us White Europeans??
What? are you people now looking to blame others for what's happening in your "dead" continent?
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