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Students add their voices to AIDS battle
Thuli Nhlapo and Sapa. The Star, July 30 2002. Reprinted courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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If you don't want AIDS then be responsible for your sexual behaviour. This was the message from Wits University students who took part in a national anti-HIV/AIDS march on Monday.
Students and staff from 20 tertiary institutions around the country wore red T-shirts and held posters with the message: Treatment Plan Now.
"Don't let your hormones control you. You control them. Take responsibility for your own life," was the message on one poster hanging at Wits's library lawns.
"I must have been 14 years old when I lost my virginity. I used a condom because I knew that AIDS kills. It's better to be safe than sorry," said Doctor Mofokeng, a second year law student.
Student Mpho Makgato was adamant that women can negotiate sex, adding that a woman can say no, if her partner refuses to wear a condom.
Ralph Berold, Project Officer of Positive Wits HIV/AIDS campaign said the group was encouraging students to be tested for the virus.
Treatment Action Campaign co-ordinator for Gauteng, Pholokgolo Ramothwala, told students that up to 1 600 people were infected each day in South Africa.
Many of those infected were in the 20 to 30 age group, and students were part of that vulnerable group.
"If you are not responsible you will end up with a virus you can't get rid of," Ramothwala warned.
Rand Afrikaans University students also marched to promote RAU's HIV/AIDS awareness campaign, which included a minute's silence in memory of all the people who have died from AIDS.
A recent survey by Tshwane metro council and the Pretoria Technikon found that 96 percent of high school students in the area had not been tested for HIV, but 66 percent of the students said they had never had sex.
This was in contrast to an earlier report from the Child and Family Care Society that found that most pupils became sexually active at 14, and there was an increase in HIV infection in Pretoria. |
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