Originally posted by Science in Africa
HIV/AIDS, the stats, the virgin cure and infant rape
Mike Earl-Taylor
Nearly 60 children are raped every day in South Africa and while experts agree to disagree as to the causes, or whether the pervasive belief in the so-called "Virgin Cure" prevents/cures HIV/Aids is possibly responsible for this deeply disturbing phenomenon, university researcher, Mike Earl-Taylor suggests it could well be a contributing factor, and a major one at that. Moreover, infant rape appears to be unique to South Africa, however, the Virgin Cure is not.
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The Figures
At the close of 2001, an estimated 40 million people worldwide -37.2 million adults and 2.7 million children younger than 15 years -were living with HIV/Aids, and more than 70 percent of these people [28.1 million] live in sub-Saharan Africa; another 15 percent [6.1 million] live in South and Southeast Asia. [1]. South Africa, a country with the highest incidence of rape and child rape in the world, has 19.94, or approximately one in nine of its 41 million population infected with HIV/Aids, as opposed to one in five for Botswana [35.8 percent], and 25.25 and 25.06 for Swaziland and Zimbabwe, respectively[2].
Currently, there are estimated to be from 4.2 to 4.7 million individuals affected by the pandemic in South Africa and these figures are projected to rise to well in excess of 6 million by the year 2010[3]. With an average of five children raped every hour of every day, of every week, of every year, the projected estimate may well be conservative.
Between 1500 to 1700 new HIV/Aids infections occur daily in South Africa, or nearly one seventh of the 14000 new infections worldwide. This figure amounts to an estimated 5 million new infections globally in 2001; more than 95 percent of these new infections occurred in developing countries and HIV/Aids-associated illnesses caused the deaths of 3 million people worldwide, including an estimated 580,000 children younger than 15 years[4].
21,000 child rapes, and some 37,000 adult rapes, were reported in South Africa last year. According to the South African Police Service, only one in 35 are actually reported. The actual incidence of rape could well be in excess of a million per year. It can only be speculated and extrapolated then that the actual incidence of child/infant rape has reached alarming and phenomenal proportions that should signal urgent intervention from the highest levels of government, and society-at-large.
To what extent is the HIV/Aids myth responsible for actions against children?
In the first instance, we must examine the culturally-specific belief system, which is not confined to South Africa as is popularly conceived, nor to the African continent as a whole, but is found to exist in most other developing countries with large numbers of HIV/Aids positive people in their populations.
India, with an estimated 3 million plus HIV/Aids sufferers, along with Thailand, both largely patriarchal societies, also has entrenched the so-called Virgin Cure within its belief systems.
The myth of the Virgin Cure has a rich and culturally diverse history stretching back to 16th century Europe, and more prominently to be found in 19th century Victorian England, where, in spite of the emphasis on morality, rectitude and family values, there existed a widespread belief, that sexual intercourse with a virgin was a cure for syphilis, gonnorhea, [and other STD's]. Syphilis, like HIV/Aids, was fatal in its terminal stages. In the Eastern Cape of South Africa, when a significant outbreak of STD's was spread by troops returning home from overseas after WWII, the Virgin Cure was widely sought among the population.
Encompassed in the current belief system of both prevention/cure of HIV/Aids is the notion that an intact hymen, and the smaller amount of vaginal secretions in young girls, prevents transmission of the disease through sexual intercourse. As previously posited, experts agree to disagree on the root causes of the shocking incidence of child rape, but all are fairly certain, that it does not meet the clinical diagnostic criteria for the paraphilia [deviant psychosexual disorder] of paedophilia.
