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Serious soccer, sex (work) and HIV - will South Africa be too hot to handle during the 2010 World Cup?

2010; Health and Medical Publishing Group; Volume: 100; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.7196/samj.4117

2078-5135

Marlise Richter, Dianne Massawe,

Youth Development and Social Support

Soccer fever is sweeping through South African streets – be they tarred, dusty or potholed. Stadiums are being polished until they shine, road signs repainted, and dank garden sheds converted into pricy bed & breakfasts. South Africa is putting its best foot forward, and wherever panic rears its head the FIFA Local Organising Committee and politicians are doing damage control. Yet a troubling and neglected topic is sex. Indeed, with the expected influx of visitors, more sex. If the AIDS epidemic has taught us anything, it is that sex is a part of human behaviour that neither governments nor the law can control. Newspaper reports have alluded to the fact that South Africa has one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world and that ‘innocent’ tourists might return home with nasty HIV from Africa. 1-3 Worse still, that these ‘innocent’ tourists will consort with ‘dubious’ sex workers and find themselves languishing in overcrowded South African prisons 4 long after the last vuvuzela has announced the end of the final game. Indeed, Dutch soccer fans have been warned to bring their own condoms, as South Africa might run out; 5 the Department of Health has responded by assuring everyone that it is well prepared. 6 Recently, Britain donated a million pounds for an additional 42 million male condoms. 7