It is 2008 and changing the behavior of a population continues to be the primary too
l applied by
Uganda in its battle to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. For more than 20 years - nearly two generations of people here in this society- the message has remained the same - abstain from sex until married,
be faithful to your spouse during marriage and use a condom if there is a chance you might become infected.
The current campaign is directed at stopping the "Sugar Daddy" phenomenon where a college girl or young woman links up with a successful older man who takes her to restaurants and clubs and gives her stuff - clothes, a phone, air time, bling bling, in exchange for sex. In her 2005 article, Helen Epstein relates: One of the
women's dorms on Makerere campus has a reputation. "Go there
some Saturday night," said a professor I knew. "That's when the men in
their big cars come and pick up the girls and take them out. Sometimes
you just see men sitting in front of the entrance, waiting. They call
it ‘benching.'"
Epstein says she tried to find the phenomenon but did not. Instead, she wandered over to where Pastor Martin Ssempa was playing to an overflow crowd at the University Swimming Pool - pushing abstinence as he does every Saturday night - driving the point home.
Billboards installed throughout the country in multiple languages are designed to both build the self-esteem of young women and also inflict a sense of shame on the Sugar Daddies themselves. Check out these two examples seen in Kampala in December, 2008. Is it working? Apparently so. Interviews by Uganda TV talk show hosts with young women were full of revelation: "I didn't know I had a choice about it but since I do, I choose to take care of myself," one said. "I've seen a lot fewer old guys in cars on campus," said another. There were no interviews with Sugar Daddies.
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