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教育專題 ◎ 2005-12-02
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教 育 專 題 深 入 報 導《2005-12-02》

本期內容
  ◎老色鬼看招!愛滋病戰役下一個箭靶 
  ◎4千萬人罹患愛滋 政府未據實以報 
  ◎貧窮 對抗愛滋的頭號敵人 
  ◎台灣立報徵文啟事 



老色鬼看招!愛滋病戰役下一個箭靶
  策劃、編譯■成怡夏
Next target in AIDS fight: sugar daddies

摘要

對年輕又美麗的貝瑞拉來說,事情一開始,只是一個家裡的老朋友再單純不過的邀請。邀請她的人是位已有妻兒的高中老師,每回到家都會為家中每個人準備禮物。所以當他邀她單獨去蒼翠的國家公園度假時,儘管她覺得不甚妥當,但在她最喜愛的嬸嬸鼓勵下,她不疑有他地出門。

就這樣,這名大她27歲的男性開始慢慢進行攻勢。在她嬸嬸贊成下,儘管不敢告訴媽媽,她開始和他交往,而他,則給了她很多會讓朋友欣羨不已的禮物。那時,她不知道自己已成為非洲祕而不宣的「老色鬼」(sugar daddy)文化一部份,由於當地年輕女性通常在經濟上和社交上處於弱勢,這種老男人追求年輕美女的情況相當廣泛。不過,現在這種現象已經隨著愛滋病在非洲的蔓延,成為重要的社會與道德議題。

據基督教科學箴言報報導,身為「Go Getters」團體領導人的大學生佩軒絲‧納曼雅古陸表示,「老色鬼」現象非常具有意義,大部分與年輕女性對於自己狹窄的看法相關。「Go Getters」這個團體主旨在於教導女性如何斷然拒絕老色鬼的糾纏。她說:「如果我們看不到自己的潛能,我們就得獨自面臨這種後果。」

的確,根據2003年官方報告,烏干達10.3%的15到24歲女性有愛滋病,男性則只有2.8%。專家把這種結果歸咎於「老色鬼」文化的盛行。同時,一項哥倫比亞大學研究發現,與年長自己10歲以上男友交往的15到19歲女性,相較起男友年齡差距在4歲以內者,感染愛滋病的機率為兩倍。

但是對貝瑞拉來說,一開始交往,喜悅遠超過冒險的成分。3天的假期中充滿歡笑,並沒有任何不潔的事情發生。之後,他想邀她約會,她有點遲疑,他卻很堅持。他告訴她之前3天的假期中並沒有對她做出任何事,足以證明自己是個正直的好人;她軟化後,他送她的禮物如雨點灑下──鞋子、耳環等等,一個月後,還送她一個手機。就這樣,很久以前父親就離去的貝瑞拉說:「他對我真的很關心,把我當成他的女兒。」但是男人的意圖當然不只是當個父親,他想要的是性,而她無法說不。他拒絕使用任何愛滋病的保護措施,還一再向她保證:「如果妳懷孕了,我會照顧孩子的。」

研究發現,年長的男性感染愛滋比例高於年輕男性,而老色鬼通常忽視安全性行為的保險措施,Go Getters會員的研究生提莉莎‧寶娜瑞莉說:「他會提供你任何想要的東西,卻要你按照他的規矩行事。」

會造成年輕女性接受「老色鬼」還有許多更為細緻深沉的原因。非洲有順服長輩智慧的傳統文化,許多年輕女性相信,年長男性在性方面更有智慧。同時,孩子必須尊敬長輩的傳統,也讓年輕女性難以拒絕較年長男性進一步的行動。再加上家人默許他們在經濟上資助,更助長這種風氣。

不過故事的發展通常不大好。經過兩年的約會,貝瑞拉發現她的男友開始和她的室友約會。事實上,大學宿舍通常是老色鬼流連的基地,不過貝瑞拉身心交瘁仍說:「我還愛著他。」

因此,一向在打擊愛滋病跑在最前線的烏干達政府開始著手對付這個現象,他們做了以下幾件事:

‧政府出版的海報貼在校園中警告:「小心老色鬼!」

‧一名國會議員發起「貞潔獎學金」,作為與老色鬼金錢抗衡的經濟手段。

‧設計一齣以老色鬼為主角的廣播肥皂劇時刻播放,並彰顯他們的黑暗面。

‧使用黃金定律策略。在一張中年男性的照片旁寫著:你會讓自己18歲的女兒和他在一起嗎?如果不,你為什麼和別人的女兒在一起?

目前橫跨整個非洲、打擊老色鬼運動正在進行中。喀麥隆一家交際行銷團體最近就舉行抗議遊行。在迦納,傳教師開始以此為題大力打擊老色鬼。

貝瑞拉在失戀後才在Go Getters的脈絡下看清自己的故事。她為自己的天真感到羞愧,她說:「他們只是想利用妳。」現在她多找了份工作賺錢,這份工作不像她感情讓她難以啟齒,她自信地說:「我可以把這個放到履歷上。」故事的結局令她開心。她說,在她的室友一腳踹開這個老男人後,這個男人又回頭找她。她露出頑皮的笑容說:「我只把Go Getters的傳單遞給他,之後他沒有再回來過了。」

(資料來源/基督教科學箴言報)

It started with an innocent-enough invitation to a young beauty named Brenda: It was from a longtime family friend - a high-school teacher with a wife and children, who brought presents for everyone when he came to visit. He asked Brenda to go away with him, alone, on vacation to a lush national park.

At first, Brenda worried something bad would happen. But her favorite aunt encouraged her: "He's a good man," she said. "Go ahead."

Thus began the slow seduction of Brenda by a man 27 years her senior. And was it so bad? After all, her aunt ap-proved - even if Brenda was too scared to tell her mom. Plus, he gave Brenda lots of goodies, making her friends envious. But before she knew it, Brenda became part of Africa's "sugar daddy" culture - a widespread but quiet fact of life on a continent where young women are often e-conomically and socially vulnerable. Yet now the phe-nomenon is increasingly being tackled as a key social and moral factor in the spread of AIDS.

The consequences of the sugar-daddy phenomenon are significant - and mostly have to do with the limited view young women have of themselves, says Patience Na-manyagulu, a university student and leader of "Go Get-ters," a program that persuades women to rebuff sugar daddies. "If we fail to see the potential in ourselves," she adds, "we face the consequences alone."Indeed, 10.3 per-cent of Ugandan women aged 15-24 have HIV/AIDS, compared with 2.8 percent of men, according to a 2003 government report. Experts attribute the gap largely to sugar daddies. Also, a Columbia University study found that women aged 15-19 whose partners were 10 or more years older were at double the risk of contracting AIDS than those with partners 0 to 4 years older.

But for Brenda, the joys outweighed the risks, at first. The three-day vacation was fun and innocent, she says. Nothing happened. But then he told her he wanted to date her. When she hesitated, he insisted. He even said the fact he hadn't forced himself on her at the park proved his good intentions. When she relented, he showered her with pre-sents such as shoes, earrings, and - after a month of dating - a new cellphone.

Her friends even got jealous. "I wish I could have a man like yours," they'd tell her. "It was prestigious for me," she says. Besides, Brenda's dad had disappeared long ago, and this man "was really caring," she says. "He took me as his daughter."

But his intentions were far from fatherly. He wanted sex, and she couldn't say no, she says. He refused to use any protection against AIDS, but reassured her: "If you get pregnant, I'll look after the kid."

Studies find older men represent a far-greater AIDS risk for young women. They're more likely to have HIV/AIDS than younger men, and, as sugar daddies, they often pre-vail over a woman on the issue of protection. "He will give you all the things you want, but you have to follow his rules," says Tirisa Bonareri, a grad student and member of the Go Getters club.There are also more-subtle reasons young women accept sugar daddies. Due to a traditional African deference-to-elders wisdom, many young women believe an older man is wiser in the ways of sex. Also, the respect children here must show elders makes it harder for young women to reject an older man's advances.

Often family members approve, seeing the arrangement as financially useful. Brenda's sugar daddy sometimes even gave money to her aunt, who had encouraged the re-lationship from the start.

Sugar daddies often succeed because young women crave the modern consumer comforts they usually can't afford. So, with a few clothes or a mobile phone, a man "can expect to have sex with the young woman," says Musinguzi, a 38-year-old sugar daddy, who was inter-viewed by a research firm here. When it comes to sex, he says, sugar daddies have all the control: "If she refuses, she loses," he says.

Sugar daddies also "get social reinforcement when they bring a university student into the [restaurant]," says Sam Ngonga of Population Services International, a nonprofit group that organized Go Getters.

But so often it ends badly. After two years of dating, Brenda discovered her man had taken up with a dorm-mate of hers. In fact, university dorms are frequent sugar-daddy trolling grounds, students here say. Brenda was devastated: "I still loved him."Whether you're dis-tracted by a sugar daddy's demands on your time - or de-spondent over his inevitable departure, "you end up not concentrating on your books, so this man has closed down your dreams," says Ms. Bonareri.

Uganda, long a leader in anti-AIDS efforts, is tackling the issue:

‧ Government-sponsored posters in schools warn, "Beware of Sugar Daddies!"

‧ One member of parliament is promoting "chastity scholarships" for young women as an economic counter-weight to sugar daddies.

‧ A radio soap opera features characters who get into sugar-daddy relationships - and discover their downsides.

‧ A PSI campaign uses a Golden-Rule approach. Showing a picture of a middle-aged man, it says, "Would you let this man be with your 18-year-old daughter? So why are you with his?"

Across Africa, anti-sugar-daddy campaigns are on the rise. A social-marketing group in Cameroon, for instance, held a recent protest march. In Ghana, preachers have be-gun speaking out.

For Brenda, discovering Go Getters put her affair in context. "These people just want to use you," she says, em-barrassed at her naivete. Now she works an extra job to earn money. Unlike the affair, she says confidently, "I can put that on my [resume]."

She exults, though, about the end of the story. After her ex-sugar daddy was spurned by her dorm-mate, he tried to entice Brenda again. "I just gave him the Go Getters hand-outs," she says with an impish grin. "And he hasn't come around again."
(回目錄)



4千萬人罹患愛滋 政府未據實以報
  策劃、編譯■成怡夏
Aids virus spreads to 40 mil-lion people, but still govern-ments understate the pan-demic

聯合國日前表示,去年一年感染愛滋人數新增5百萬人,目前全球罹患愛滋病者已高達4千萬人。雖然肯亞、辛巴威以及許多加勒比海國家感染愛滋人數減緩,但聯合國愛滋病計畫組織指出,在非洲撒哈拉沙漠地區愛滋蔓延的速度持續上升,另外在印度許多跡象顯示,感染愛滋的人數比官方估計還多。

聯合國愛滋病計畫組織執行長彼得‧皮埃特在記者會中表示,佔全球人口一半以上的亞洲地區尤其危險,中國和緬甸是亞洲疫情最嚴重的地區,然而民眾對於問題的嚴重性卻不清楚,他說,在世界人口最多的國家中國,大多數的民眾都不知道愛滋病毒是如何傳染的。至於印度,官方數字顯示有510萬民眾感染愛滋(這個數字與南非相去不遠),去年感染愛滋的人數則戲劇化地從2003年的52萬人降到2004年的2萬8千人,當地的志工團體沒人相信其真實性。

對於印度的數字,皮埃特博士有兩個看法。第一,大部分的取樣來自印度鄉間,然而大部分的印度人口都集中在城市。第二,印度某些省份對於愛滋監測的品質很差。他說:「來自貧窮省份的移民來到孟買居住,回鄉時卻不會把疾病傳給自己的妻子,這樣說不過去。我認為這份調查遺漏了某些東西。」

聯合國愛滋病計畫組織的報告呼籲大家持續新的努力一起協助愛滋的預防,尤其目前只有一百萬人在用藥治療,另外6百萬人則因沒有藥很快就會死亡,去年,就有3百萬人死於愛滋。世界衛生組織的目標是在今年年底前達到3百萬人進行治療的目標,並強調治療工作對於也預防工作非常重要。不過他說過去過多的注意都放在治療上,長期來看,預防還是更為根本的。

報告中也顯示,僅管宣導工作在印度和泰國的性工作者,以及西班牙和巴西的吸毒者間頗有成效,但是最棘手的問題還是在非洲的撒哈拉沙漠地區,那裡有77%感染愛滋病的患者都是女性,她們的社會地位非常低,也缺少在和男性要求安全性行為時協商的能力。

許多計畫目前正致力於提升非洲女性地位,然而結果讓人非常失望,傳統的常規目前仍舊凌越性別平權的觀念之上。
(回目錄)



貧窮 對抗愛滋的頭號敵人
  策劃、編譯■成怡夏
The fight against Aids demands more than a goat at Christmas

25年前AIDS首次被人類診斷出來,就有相當多的金錢投入這場世紀之役的對抗中,理由很清楚,因為人類歷史上還沒有其他的疾病如愛滋會產生如此巨大的破壞性,不但對勞動生產力影響,也對生兒育女造成嚴重的殺傷力。然而,對抗愛滋病在非洲的肆虐,西方國家現在面臨關鍵時刻,必須做出選擇,是付出空前的資源投入救援?還是冒非洲徹底毀滅的險?

英國衛報報導,近日一項在世界愛滋日之前公佈的聯合國愛滋病計畫組織(UNAIDS)數字顯示,儘管已有10億以上的美元投入救援行列,在非洲南部愛滋病仍舊相當盛行──史瓦濟蘭超過40%的人有愛滋病,波札那則是37%,南非則接近30%,令人不禁要問,為什麼非洲受到的襲擊這麼嚴重?為什麼這麼多年來投入這麼多的錢在預防計畫上卻成效不彰?本月稍早在莫三比克首都馬普托診所的約西娜提供了這些問題的部份答案。

儘管愛滋病病毒呈現陽性反應,已有三個孩子、還有一個在腹中的約西娜,比實際年齡看起來年輕些,穿著細肩帶T恤,戴著羊毛帽的她羞澀地解釋她的處境。她曾經兩度因為懷孕被男友拋棄,她現在有一個男友,不過由於他在坐牢,她只好再找一個可以幫男友出獄的男友。她所提及的人際網絡部分重疊,然而這些人有助於她撫養孩子,對她來說相當重要。不過,她和男人的關係通常以背叛或是出賣告吹。

約西娜悲慘的故事有兩個特徵點出了整個非洲的普遍現象。首先是所謂的「同時性」。研究指出非洲性伴侶人數雖然和西方社會差不多,但是不同點在於,在非洲許多男性和某些女性在同一時間,會有兩、三個甚至更多的長期性伴侶;然而在西方社會,則是一段時間一位性伴侶。而同時性的性關係就是愛滋蔓延重要原因,這裡面只要有一個人感染愛滋病毒,整個性關係網絡中每個人都中獎。

第二,「同時性」因貧富不均而強化。在這個高度貧窮的國家(莫三比克接近80%的人一天用不到一英鎊),女人最好的生存策略,就是用性和卡車司機或是街頭小販交換他們口袋的幾個硬幣,逼人鋌而走險的貧窮讓愛滋病更加猖獗。假如一個人面對的是不知道自己孩子的下一餐在哪裡,或是在付不出租金就要從簡陋小屋被趕出去這樣的立即性問題,感染愛滋病毒就無足輕重了。

有上百萬人正經歷和約西娜一樣的慘況,這也是專家超過十多年打擊愛滋病的戰役中最艱困的地方。唯一的希望在於,像約西娜一樣的人能夠充分意識到她所冒的風險是什麼,資訊和免費的保險套就足以造成行為的改變。但是在許多地方這種策略並不奏效,波札那曾經到處都是保險套,但是卻沒有實質的效果呈現,由於女性很少強悍到具有與男性協商使用保險套的能力,男性通常不大願意使用保險套。此外,當地缺乏垃圾收集系統,他們不知道該把用過的保險套放在何處。

那些提倡行為改變的人始終在美國愛滋病政策上居領導地位,而身為非洲愛滋救助計畫最大金主的美國,卻對全球如何看待並因應這項疾病施加其影響力。美國自80年代男同性戀團體出現愛滋病後,一直把愛滋視為個人人權,布希入主白宮後,更輕易地以宗教角度將此議題轉接到個人道德問題上。美國主導的計劃現在強調「婚前貞潔」觀念。然而問題不在於伴侶彼此的委身與忠貞,而是貧窮問題,在非洲南部地區結婚率自70年代就開始下降,部分原因是因為年輕男性無法提供女方做為聘金的一頭牛。

專家們的憤怒在於美國事實上關心自己國家的性問題,遠超過非洲面臨的危機。倫敦經濟學院教授東尼‧巴內特說,只把焦點放在人們如何行為,而不了解造成他們行為模式的社經脈絡是件非常荒謬的事。約西娜找男友難道是個人貞潔上的「雜交」?還是亂世下合理的反應?在他的「21世紀的愛滋病」中,巴內特提及由於傳統村落社會結構的崩解,挖礦的移民勞工、在進出口路線來往的卡車司機、軍隊的移動等等都助長愛滋病的蔓延,他認為愛滋病是非洲全球化經驗的副產品。

愛滋病是非洲大陸貧窮的原因,也是結果,讓許多最嚴重受到影響的國家陷入惡性循環。然而最糟的還沒有來臨:在10年內,這些受感染的人將會病重、死亡或是陷入尋找藥物的絕境。一個國家有40% 的人死亡會是怎麼樣的情形?一個由孩子養育孩子的社會會是怎樣?由西方發展出的複雜雞尾酒療法,勢必會簡化到最基本的形式對數百萬人進行治療。非洲政府將需要建立醫院、尋找護士並訓練醫生,在許多地方從頭開始建立公衛系統。所面臨的挑戰簡直令人卻步。

更重要的是,你要如何讓在正生存危機中的人想到長遠的事情?今年「讓貧窮走入歷史」Live8演唱會說了:「我們要你的聲音,而非你的錢。」錯了,兩者都需要。這場對抗愛滋的戰役需要的不是耶誕節的大禮,是前所未有的付出和倫理上的想像力。把這想做是全球第一次繳稅吧!就像是每個人為另一人付醫藥費,在非洲與這場災難奮戰時,不能丟下他們不管。
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