GIRLS VULNERABILITY TO GETTING STIS

Social Reasons

1. UNEQUAL POWER: Imbalance of power between men and women and boys and girls means that women are often unable to make decisions about their own bodies or sexuality that could protect them from STIs.
   
   
2. FEAR OF VIOLENCE: Because of this fear girls find it difficult to negotiate safe sex and protect themselves against HIV and STIs. A girl is afraid she will be beaten if she refuses to have sex or asks her partner to use a condom, even if she knows he has been having sex with other girls. If her partner wants sex, she is expected to deliver – not refuse or ask him to put on a condom. She cannot protect herself against the violence – so how can she protect herself against HIV?
   
   
3. SEXUAL VIOLENCE – forced sex by partners, or rape by other men in the community. Sexual violence makes girls vulnerable to getting HIV. It produces bleeding and small internal cuts in the vagina that make it easier for HIV to be transferred.
   
   
4. Girls’ risk of SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS. Their partners often do not tell them they have STIs (or HIV) and they continue to have unprotected sex with them. The girls get the STIs unknowingly and the STIs produce sores or cuts in the skin which make them more vulnerable to getting HIV. 
    
5. POVERTY. Poor girls are forced into selling sex to meet the basic needs of their families, making them vulnerable to HIV infection.

Violence against women and the fear of violence limits women’s control over their bodies and sexual lives and makes them more vulnerable than boys to getting HIV.

Biological Reasons

Women also have physical differences from men which put them at greater risk of getting HIV:

1. Women get HIV during sex twice as easily as men because;

• Semen has a higher concentration of HIV than vaginal fluids.
• The woman’s vagina has large areas of exposed and sensitive skin surface that can develop small tears during sexual intercourse. This allows HIV and other STIs to enter the woman’s bloodstream.
• Semen also stays in the vagina after sex, increasing the risk of transmission. In contrast, the penis has a small surface area which is in contact with vaginal fluids for a shorter time; and men can more easily wash off vaginal fluids after sex.

2. Men usually know when they have an STI, but women don’t.

• It is difficult for women to detect that they have an STI because their sexual organs are internal unlike men’s – some symptoms do not appear in women and other symptoms may be hidden in the vagina canal. So they have to depend on their husbands or partners to tell them they have an STI. This limits their ability to protect themselves against STIs – and having STIs increases their vulnerability to HIV.
• STIs produce sores or cuts in the vagina which make it easier for HIV to pass during intercourse.

3. Teenage girls, whose vaginal tissue is not fully mature, are more likely to develop lesions during intercourse which makes them more vulnerable to getting HIV.

• A young girl’s vagina is lined with a thin layer of cells. As she grows older this thin layer grows into a thick and very strong multi-layered wall. But this does not happen until she is in her late teens or early twenties.
• The young girl’s thin vaginal wall is a very poor roadblock to HIV. It can be bruised during the pushing movement of sex and HIV can enter her body very easily.

4. The young girls’ genital tract produces very little mucous. Mucous in the female genital tract serves four very important functions:

1. It acts as a lubricant, making sex smooth and protecting the surface of the vagina from getting abrasions.
2. It is a physical barrier, separating the semen from the vaginal and cervical walls.
3. It washes down the cervix and vagina, removing foreign material.
4. It contains immune system cells.

5. Violence or the fear of violence results in very little mucous being produced causing higher friction and likeliness of tearing in the vagina. Production of mucous is increased by sexual desire and reduced by tension or fear. In a young girl the mucous production cells are not yet in place, so she does not produce much vaginal mucous at the best of times. But a young girl will produce even less mucous if:

1. She is frightened because she is being forced to have sex
2. She does not like the person she is having sex with.
3. She likes the person but is not quite sure she wants to have sex
4. She and her partner are having sex in a hurry and she can’t relax. Without much mucous the young girls’ thin genital membranes are likely to get torn during sex. This creates an open door for HIV to walk into the body.

In summary, young girls are very vulnerable to getting HIV because their genital tracts are not yet mature. They can protect themselves in only two ways – by not having sexual intercourse or by always using condoms.