it makes me sick to my stomach to think about, but he's on tape berating "Kristen" to have unprotected sex and was described by her madam as a "difficult" customer who was into "dangerous and unhygenic" acts. All this over a period of at least 10 years during which time he was keeping his wife in the dark and probably having unprotected sex with her as well. Silda's lucky if she hasn't had an STI in all this time. Hopefully she got tested after that press conference. Just a reminder that it can happen to any woman, anywhere. Cheaters have been shown to be LESS likely to use condoms because of their cognitive dissonance. AIDS is on the rise everywhere.

My heart goes out to all of these women who lack basic agency over their lives and bodies. The world needs more honest sex education and more feminism.

Check out the Grameen banks and microloans.

It seems sometimes, The world has forgotten the importance and value women are entitled to hold.

We we're your womb...we will be your teacher, your meal ticket, the reason you survive each day, when you hurt we are your pillow to cry on, when you call we answer(even if it's 3 a.m., bushy-poo) when you succeed we are the first to applaude, when you are fired and homeless we are the first to offer secure shelter, we are there when your children need our help, and we will be there forever.

but after years of abuse, rape and killing, plus more hardships to endure, an evil grows in some of us...a yearning for revenge...and we are slowly growing away from the values we once held with great allegiance. With all this in mind...where do you think we will be in years to come?

I don't think we'll give a fuck.

Thank you so much for this informative post, Lynn. It underscores how little agency women have in negotiating safer sex in many settings (and how doing HIV prevention work without undoing accepted gender norms is not enough). I would go one step further and connect this to PEPFAR, the global AIDS relief bill currently up for reauthorization. The US government-mandated message of abstinence-until-marriage first is utterly meaningless for women who cannot choose not to have sex, and for whom marriage is no protection against HIV, as this report amply demonstrates. HIV advocates are trying to push Congress to pass a scientifically-sound, non-ideological version of PEPFAR, but even the Democrats are not standing strong on this. There is a lot of PEPFAR coverage on RH Reality Check (www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/tag/pepfar). Reforms to PEPFAR would go a long way to address the issues you are writing about.

Maybe it is the culture or poor diet or religion or whatever but I wish those women would think 'the bastard has to sleep sometime' & then while they're sleeping, out comes the machete. You get a neighbor in the same boat to vouch for your alibi.

They are giving you a death warrant when they rape you. Maybe put antifreeze in their drink. I doubt they CSI much in the SA slums.

One rapist, one bullet.

This AI report is a clear example of how many social and public health problems are interconnected. To address HIV in South Africa, condoms and abstinence programs are not enough. One needs to address poverty, sexism, violence against women, male entitlement, medical care, and ignorance about HIV transmission. It's a monumental task to address these social issues, but it is the only way to make a real dent in the HIV problem.

These women need work so that they can have their own money to support themselves without resorting to prostitution. Money is power and they need more of it. Does anyone know of an NGO which is effective in creating jobs for women in underdeveloped areas?

Your ignorance is truly staggering. The cultural, social and political history of South Africa (and many other African nations) has conspired to create a vicious system where girls and women are forced to prostitute themselves to simply survive. They can no more force condom usage than any other impoverished female in South Africa. How in the world did you deduce in one of the AIDS hotspots of the world that they could? Ignorant, ignorant and more ignorant.

Thanks to deeply entrenched yet outdated social norms regarding chastity and gender, females taking control of their own bodies in any way is seen as anathema. That not only serves to harden views against condom usage but, of course, ensures the spread of the disease to women, girls and their children. This perpetuates a vicious cycle of poverty, abuse and abandonment since these women and their children will become societal castoffs, and will be driven to ever more desperate measures to survive. Like prostitution.

all those prostitutes are so empowered and are able to use those condoms every single time. That's why 90% of them in SA have AIDS and that's why they are the major venue for spreading HIV. Because SA prostitutes are so empowered, it's literally killing them.

You need to look at the following:

First off, South Africa's government is massively incompetent. It is the sort of incompetent that the Republicans can only dream of achieving.

The chief of police is best buds with one of the world's biggest drug dealers. In the cities you can tell who has money by the heights of the walls, who lives in an (Illegally) boomed suburb and how powerful their electric fences are.

And when I say boomed suburb, I mean they have actually fenced off the bulk of the roads going into those suburbs and put a boom across one which has a security guard on it to let the residents in.

The poor bastards in squater camps basically have nothing between them and getting murdered, raped or burnt alive in their sleep.

Jacob Zuma, the leader of the ANC had unprotected sex with a woman he knew to be HIV positive, but figured that taking a shower would take care of it. All of this came out during his rape trial.

He has more wives than he can count and is probably guilty of taking bribes. He is probably going to be the next national president.

The health minister's response to the AIDS crisis was to sing the praises of beatroot. She is a drunken kleptomaniac who abuses her staff.

The national power company, Eskom, had a morritorium on new power plants. Recently it was very surprised to find that it couldn't supply enough power to keep the economy going.

The education sector was host to a strike last year, where the teachers tore up exam papers and assualted students. The nurses behaved worse.

When Oprah Winfrey built a school in South Africa she made distinct efforts to keep the children away from corrupting influences. What she didn't realise is South Africa has an epidemic of teachers raping students.

The reason you haven't heard about this is because South Africa also has an epidemic of rape in general.