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Learning from experience - sex education for young women

Knowledge about AIDS is dangerously low among rural Ugandan women and girls who have dropped out of school. The 'senga', the father’s sister, used to give sexual advice to young girls, but this tradition is dying out in central Uganda. Could it be revived and adapted to provide information about HIV?

Makerere University and the Medical Research Council Programme on AIDS studied sexual attitudes of young women in rural Uganda and looked at the role of the senga. Updating the tradition could provide a useful channel to pass on sexual information to teenage girls, they found.

Traditionally parents do not talk about sex with their children. This used to be the role of the senga, who was considered a ‘female father’. She gave advice on menstruation, elongation of the genitals, dealing with a husband socially and sexually, and preparation for womanhood and marriage. Senga still exists to a limited degree. A senga is present at the betrothal ceremony and will counsel the girl on the night before the wedding. But the advice is out of date: they discuss virginity and labia elongation but not the need for safe sex. Girls are told to be submissive to their husbands but have little opportunity to air their concerns.

Interviews with young women reveal risky behaviour and attitudes:

For teenage girls, particularly those who have dropped out of school, a sexual relationship is a way of obtaining clothes, rent and money.
Most girls believe they will not catch HIV.
Many think they can only become infected by a stranger.
Many are fatalistic about HIV and feel that changing their sexual behaviour will make no difference.
Girls fear contracting HIV from their future husbands who are traditionally allowed extra-marital sex.
Some believe that they are already infected, although they have not been tested, and that it is too late to change their behaviour.

The term ‘senga’ is now used more generally to mean anywhere you can receive advice on sexual matters, such as marital guidance centres or AIDS clinics. The institution could be modernised to make it more relevant by:

training senga in counselling skills
listening to girls’ concerns as well as giving advice
providing better quality sex education to teenage girls, addressing HIV prevention and family planning
using community-based guidance to reach vulnerable girls, such as teenage mothers and those who have dropped out of school
giving on-going rather one-off advice to provide continuous support and encouragement to those who need it.

Source(s):
‘Traditional sex counselling and STI/HIV prevention among young women in rural Uganda’, Culture, Health & Sexuality 3 (3): 353-361, by H. Muyinda, J. Kengeya and R. Pool, 2001
HINARI subscribers can access the full-text article here. Full document.

Funded by: UK Medical Research Council

id21 Research Highlight: 03 July 2002

Further Information:
Jimmy Whitworth
MRC Programme on AIDS in Uganda
c/o Uganda Virus Research Institute
PO Box 49
Entebbe
Uganda

Tel: +256 (0) 41 320042/320272
Fax: +256 (0) 41 321137
Contact the contributor: mrc@starcom.co.ug

Other related links:
See id21's collection of links relevant to HIV/AIDS.

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