Source: Daily Trust
At least three in 10 young girls have sex for the first time ever through rape, says a survey.

The survey by Positive Action for Treatment Access (PATA) investigated reasons for high HIV prevalence and lower age of first sex among adolescents aged between 10 and 19 and found "forced sex was the third main reason for sexual debut" after love and peer pressure.

More than 31.4% of girls, many of them living with HIV, reported "forced sex", compared with less than one percent of boys, said Dr Morenike Ukpong, who presented the study at a national dialogue on adolescents living with HIV in Nigeria.

"If 31.4% of females can report their first sexual debut is rape, I think it is an epidemic," she told Daily Trust. "We have an epidemic called rape that we are not addressing. It is something to weep over."

The survey, which asked 10-19-year-olds to fill out questionnaires and take in focus group discussions, suggests young girls forced into sex are significantly susceptible to infections.

"For many of those that are HIV-positive, their exposure to HIV is because of rape. It is a risk factor for HIV infection and we are not dealing with that," said Ukpong.

One participant living with HIV admitted to a focus discussion group during the survey that she "got her sickness through rape" at age seven.

"And the man said if I tell my mum or dad he would kill me. He showed me knife and I was afraid, I was just 7 years old then. He was sleeping with me every day and I was fearful to talk to anybody. I bled, my sister saw it but I could not tell her what happened. My mum asked me but I told her nothing. I was taken to the hospital; there I had to confide in the nurse. I told her, she called my mum and told her.

"My mum was crying, we went home and my dad also heard about it. After my dad was told, he planned for the arrest of the man and the man was arrested. A test was conducted on the man and on me and we tested positive to HIV."

Ukpong warned: "We are dealing with everything, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, but nobody has ever focused on rape as a transmission route."

The survey, funded by Ford Foundation, recruited more than a 1000 young adults from 12 states--two per geopolitical zone--and targeted states which have existing HIV management centres that could cater to young people.

• Nigeria