Food insecurity is driving women in Africa into sex work, increasing HIV risk
A study found that giving direct food support to women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa cut their risk of contracting HIV by 64%, because it alleviated the pressure to engage in high-risk sex.
The first time she traded sex for food to feed her family, J was 14 years old. Her father died when she was an infant, leaving her single mother to care for her and her six siblings in her native village in eastern Uganda.
She soon gave birth to a baby girl, and her family continued to struggle to eat. So at 16, lured by a relative and the prospect of earning money as a maid, J left her baby behind and traveled 101 miles to the capital to find work so she could send money back home.
"We [had] nothing to eat, nothing to drink, nothing to feed the baby, to dress the baby — nothing," she told NPR. "I thought when I was in the village that things are easy here in Kampala, that I will find peace, I will work."
Then, famine struck her village
