Changing gender relations among young people: The global challenge for HIV/AIDS prevention

The worldwide epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has affected different populations in different countries. Yet, every country has recognized the particular vulnerability of its young people to possible infection. This vulnerability is commonly thought to relate in the main to young people's assumed universal interest in sexual experimentation. Various studies have demonstrated not only both worrying levels of sexual risk-taking among some young people, but also significant care being taken by others in relation to HIV/AIDS risk. Young people are clearly not a singularity, but rather live their lives in varying social and cultural circumstances that have a bearing on their sexual activities and their ideas about sex. This paper reports on a comparative study of the social and contextual factors affecting young people's risk-related sexual behaviour in seven developing countries. The study was commissioned by the World Health Organization's former Global Programme on AIDS and overseen to completion by the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS). The paper outlines the study's cross-cultural design and qualitative methodology, and in particular reports its major findings on gender relations among young people. The findings argue strongly for a reconceptualization of young people's sexuality and for different kinds of research needed to obtain more subtle, detailed social and cultural data for use in designing educational interventions for young people in relation to HIV/AIDS.