Chicago Tribune - September 17, 2004
Laurie Goering, Tribune foreign correspondent

But a new study of teen girls has turned up something remarkable: 6 percent of those 15 to 18 years old appear to be HIV-positive, well below the government estimate of 32.5 percent.

"It's a surprise," said Alan Brody, the Swaziland representative for UNICEF, which carried out the research released last month. Girls, he said, "are getting the message" about AIDS.

Researchers believe the unexpectedly low rate of HIV infection among teen girls is the result of a dramatic change from one generation to the next in how AIDS is perceived, a changing view that may be happening in other areas of Africa as well.

Swazis now in their 20s or older grew up with a harsh government anti-AIDS message: Have sex without a condom, ads said, and you will die.

"People were led by health education to falsely believe the risk of infection was virtually 100 percent if you had unprotected sex one time," Brody said. "The idea was purposely promoted to frighten people out of having sex."

The problem, he said, is that people do have sex, and many had already had unprotected relations before getting the government message. For others, "the reality is one time happens," Brody said. "People get drunk or find themselves in places where they shouldn't be. Then they think they're finished and lose all hope."

With a growing number of Swazis convinced they were doomed, he said, some decided "if I'm going to die, I'm going to eat, drink, be merry and have as much sex as I can before then," leading to a spread of the virus. Others refused to believe that AIDS was a serious problem because the infection remains largely invisible for years.

That changed around 2000 with the first large-scale AIDS deaths, after an explosion of infections in the early 1990s. Suddenly teenagers who had looked up to sexually active older relatives saw them dying.

"That older girl who seemed so cool and was partying when you were a kid, now she's at home and when you go and visit her she's skinny and sick," Brody said. "That makes you think a lot."

The result, he said, is that those who have come of age after 2000--the current generation of teenagers--now see the virus as a serious threat and are actively seeking information on how to avoid it.

At meetings organized by non-governmental organizations and churches, which have taken up the anti-AIDS cause, "they want to know everything there is to know about the virus, not just about abstaining and using condoms," Brody said. "They say, `What about oral sex? What about kissing?' They want in-depth information."

That was clear last month at Swaziland's traditional reed dance, where tens of thousands of purportedly virgin teenage girls gather each year to stomp and sway for the royal family.

This year the girls--many from remote rural villages--listened to AIDS lectures as part of the gathering and danced near a prominent anti-AIDS sign posted by the Queen Mother.

The girls, however, complained that the informational lectures focused almost entirely on the importance of abstinence until marriage, a limited message that left many girls hungry for more information.

"They tell us we're not supposed to be with boys," said Bonsile Similani, 15, of Mbulingwane. But she and her friends admitted they weren't really even sure what sex was yet.

Brig. Gen. Gideon Dube, Swaziland's court historian and a retired defense secretary, attributes the country's AIDS problem in part to a breakdown in tradition, particularly men migrating away from their families to jobs and children attending boarding schools, away from family influences.

Bringing the crisis under control, he said, will require resurrecting tradition, particularly pressure on young girls to remain virgins until marriage.

Swaziland's King Mswati III made such pressures law in 2001, when he issued a five-year ban on virgins marrying, having sex or even shaking hands with men. Virginal girls were ordered to wear traditional yellow and blue tassels to mark their status and warn men away.

But girls have limited power to say no to sex in a society where women are considered legal minors, human-rights groups warn.

The king's message has been muted by his own polygamous behavior. At this year's reed dance, he selected his 13th wife, a 16-year-old, from among the teenage throng. Two of his wives have fled Swaziland over the past year, one after being caught in an affair. Fear is growing that AIDS could reach the royal family.

"I don't want the king to look at me," said Similani, one of the young dancers. "He's got too many wives already."

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