Financially empowering young women in poor countries may help protect them against sexually transmitted diseases. A new study shows that addressing poverty can help prevent risky behavior.
增加贫穷国家年轻女性的财政能力将能帮助她们抗击性传染病。一份新研究显示，解决贫穷问题有助于预防危险行为发生。Poverty, a lack of education and gender inequality make girls and young women more vulnerable. It happens when they turn to older men for financial help for themselves or their families. Men who may be infected with HIV or herpes.
贫穷、缺乏教育和性别不平等使少女和年轻妇女更加脆弱。当她们为自己或家人向较年长男性寻求金钱上的帮助时，就比较容易受到伤害。而这些男性可能患有艾滋病毒或泡疹。The findings are based on a study of 13 to 22 year old women in the Zomba district of Malawi. At the start of the study none had ever been married.
这个发现是根据一份对马拉维重巴区13岁到22岁的女性的研究而来。在研究一开始时，没有一名女性是结过婚的。“We knew that Malawi was a poor country with a high HIV problem particularly among adolescent girls and young women, especially in the south where we ended up doing our study. So we said, why don’t we start this little pilot experiment to see as a proof of concept whether small amounts of cash transfers can reduce the risk of getting infected?” said Dr. Berk Ozler, a senior economist at the World Bank, who took part in the research.
世界银行的资深经济学家奥兹勒尔博士参与了研究。奥兹勒尔说：“我们知道马拉维是个艾滋病问题严重的穷国，少女和年轻女性的艾滋病例特别多，尤其是在南部，我们最后就是在南部进行研究。我们说，我们为什么不作个小型试点实验来验证小额现金资助能否降低感染风险？”Education, he said, has been described as a “social vaccine” against HIV and other diseases. But many girls in the study were dropouts.
奥兹勒尔说，教育向来被形容是对抗艾滋病和其他疾病的“社会疫苗”。但研究中的许多女孩都是辍学生。“A lot of times young girls will drop out of school very early, like age 14, 15, 16. And soon after that, their fertility, their child bearing starts and then they get married. And the earlier you’re getting married the older your husband or your sexual partners tend to be. That’s essentially the link toward unprotected – not necessarily risk per se – but unprotected sexual behavior in an environment where older men have a significant chance of being HIV positive,” said Ozler.
奥兹勒尔说：“许多时候女孩们早在14、15、16岁就辍学。之后不久就有生育能力，然后结婚。你越早结婚，你的丈夫或性伴侣多半越老。在一个年长男性艾滋病感染率明显较高的环境下，这根本上就是导致无保护性行为。”Sugar Daddies?
Sometimes, older men who are with much younger women are called sugar daddies. But the World Bank economist said that was not necessarily the case in the Malawi study.
较年长的男性和小他很多岁的年轻女性在一起有时被叫作“甜心老爹”。但世界银行经济学家奥兹勒尔说，在马拉维不一定是这种情况。“In the media, this kind of sugar daddy phenomena gets sensationalized a little bit. What we find is much more subtle. It’s that if you’re an 18, 19 year old girl and you need somebody to support you and your family, your age mates aren’t really able to do that because your age mates are as poor as you. But it’s the older guys who have a bit of money. So, when we’re talking about this kind of sugar daddy phenomenon, it’s really not that. It’s that you’re essentially dating out of your age cohort because of economic reasons,” he said.
奥兹勒尔说：“媒体过份炒作这种甜心老爹现象。但我们发现的是更加微妙的现象。如果你是一名18、19岁的女孩，你需要某个人帮助自己和家人，跟你同龄的男性作不到这点，因为他们跟你一样穷。但较年长的男性有点钱。所以当我们讨论这种甜心老爹现象，真的不是媒体报道的那样，而是你因为经济因素和不是自己年龄层的人约会。”If the young women had sex with men their own age, he said, they would have a very low risk of contracting HIV. Surveys in Malawi show the HIV prevalence rate among teenage boys is close to zero.
他表示，如果年轻女性和同龄男性进行性行为，她们感染艾滋病的风险会非常低。奥兹勒尔说，马拉维的调查显示，青少年的艾滋病流行率接近零。Little money, big difference
The study offered the girls and young women cash payments, perhaps 10 dollars a month. Some were just given the money with no conditions attached, while others were required to regularly attend school. There was some behavior change in those who received the money.
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