Research conducted in collaboration with the University of Cape Town’s gender, health and justice unit has confirmed the link between gender-based violence (GBV) and HIV in South Africa, Iol reports the 9th South African Aids Conference heard.
High numbers of people testing positive for HIV revealed that they had been raped or were in violent intimate relationships and were unable to negotiate condom use, according to Larissa Klazinga, the regional policy and advocacy manager at the Aids Healthcare Foundation (AHF) South Africa.
The report says research was done at the Ithembalabantu Clinic in Umlazi, Durban, a voluntary HIV counselling and testing (VCT) centre with a clinic population of 16,368 (10,047 female and 6,321 male; 422 being under 16) and a community population of more than half a million people.
A cross-sectional study was conducted using a screening tool and a longer in-depth questionnaire about the prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).
A random sample of 1,936 VCT clients completed the screening tool while 436 patients completed the in-depth prevalence questionnaire.
Klazinga said in the report that the study revealed that 54% of participants had not discussed condom use and 62% had not used a condom. This did not differ between women and men – 16% of male participants had had sex with another man, and 2% of female participants had had sex with another woman.
She said that 10% of all participants and 12% of women had been forced to have sex the last time that they had sexual intercourse, by either a partner or a non-partner. Of those, seven had been forced to have sex by more than one person.
The lifetime prevalence of sexual violence was 14% among all participants who took part in the survey at the treatment literacy group. Among female participants, it was 17%, or one in six women.
Sexual violence perpetrated by intimate partners was the most common (lifetime prevalence 9%), followed by sexual violence perpetrated by a person known to the participant (lifetime prevalence 7%).
The lifetime prevalence of physical violence was 16% among all participants. Among female participants, it was 19% (almost one in five women). Like sexual violence, physical violence was most often perpetrated by an intimate partner (lifetime prevalence 12%).
The prevalence of sexual and physical violence experienced by the clinic population was high, although seemingly under-reported at the HIV Testing and Counselling (HTC) stage, said Klazinga – 2% of clients coming for HTC said that they came to test because they were coerced to have sex without a condom or were raped.
“This number may seem small until seen in relation, 2% equates to 34 clients over a time of 20 weeks, which means the HTC staff see more than one patient a week for HTC as a result of a sexual assault.”
Klazinga said in the report that health services, particularly those focused on HIV, provided an important entry point for identifying and responding to women who had experienced sexual violence.
Abstract
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[link url="https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/saaids2019-study-confirms-link-between-gender-based-violence-hiv-26140382"]IoL report[/link]