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A PSI program in Uganda that encourages young women to rebuff sugar daddies was featured in a front page story in The Christian Science Monitor. PSI has several campaigns in Africa discouraging the practice of "cross-generational sex" — a non-marital, sexual relationship between partners with at least a 10-year difference in age — and this one in Uganda was the first. This article tells the story of Brenda, who was drawn into a sexual relationship with a family friend 27 years her senior. The article points out that the great disparity between Ugandan women and men infected with HIV - 10.3% for women and 2.8% for men — is largely attributed to this practice. And, the Monitor reports, "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." Sugar daddies often succeed, the Monitor says, 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 a young woman," a 38-year-old sugar daddy is quoted as saying. In Uganda, PSI has launched a program called "Go Getters," which uses peer education to impart life skills, HIV risk awareness and the confidence to look beyhond short-term gratification and set long-term goals. PSI also implements a mass media campaign to stigmatize cross-generational sex. "A PSI campaign uses a Golden-Rule approach," writes McLaughlin. "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?'" Brenda eventually found out that her man had taken up with her college
roommate who eventually spurned him. When he tried to re-start his relationship
with Brenda, she was finally able to resist his advances. "I just
gave him the Go Getters handouts," she says with an impish grin.
"And he hasn't come around again."
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