Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday warned ‘sugar daddies’ to stay away from young girls.
Ramaphosa was speaking at the World Aids Day commemoration in Port Shepstone, KwaZulu Natal.
“The number of new HIV infections is still extremely high, particularly among young women and girls,” Ramaphosa said.
“All these sugar-daddies must leave our children alone, go to your age group,” he said.
Ramaphosa said government plans to launch a campaign to raise awareness and educate young girls about the dangers of sugar daddies and unsafe sex.
“We urge all our young people to be patient, respect your parents, get an educate and to abstain,” Ramaphosa said.
Ramaphosa emphasised that if men care about the well-being of women they will use protection during sexual intercourse without hesitating. He also called men to avail themselves to get tested
“Today we speak with one voice and a single message that we can make HIV and AIDS history,” he said.
“As a people, and as individuals, we must act to inform, to support and to encourage. No action is too small. No contribution is wasted. We must protect ourselves and those who are nearest to us. We must protect the vulnerable. We must combat stigma and create an environment in which all can feel safe and comfortable to test and be treated. The end of HIV as a public health threat is in sight,” Ramaphosa said ahead of World Aids Day.
The HIV treatment programme has seen more than 3 million of people on life-saving antiretrovirals.
“People are living longer and fewer people are dying of AIDS and TB. Life expectancy has increased from 53 years in 2006 to just over 62 years in 2013. We have reduced mother-to-child transmission further,” Ramaphosa said.
Ramaphosa will be joined by KwaZulu-Natal Premier Senzo Mchunu and several MECs.
South Africa has the world’s biggest AIDS epidemic. About 6.3 million people of its 53 million population are HIV-positive, nearly 20% of the adult population, according to U.N.
AIDS. Millions have died since the epidemic began.
But work to tackle the virus has made huge progress.
Since 2010, annual deaths from the disease – once as high as a third of a million people a year – have fallen by more than a third as drug treatment improves.
In South Africa, just 4% of boys and young men 15 to 24 years old carry the virus that causes AIDS. Among girls the same age, the rate is 13%, according to Southern African Development Community (SADC) figures.
AIDS is the number one cause of death among adolescents in Africa with 7 in every 10 new infections in sub-Saharan Africa among girls aged 15-19, according to UNICEF.
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