Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre (SARAVYC), University of British Columbia School of Nursing, Vancouver, Canada.
Child Abuse Negl. 2017 Mar;65:14-23. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.01.001. Epub 2017 Jan 18.
Research on youth sexual exploitation in Africa has largely neglected the experiences of exploited boys. To date, much of the research in sub-Saharan Africa continues to consider boys mainly as exploiters but not as exploited. Using the only publicly available population-based surveys from the National Survey of Adolescents, conducted in four sub-Saharan African countries - Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, and Uganda-we assessed factors associated with transactional sexual behaviour among never-married adolescent boys and girls. We also examined whether boys' reported sexual exploitation was linked to similar risky sexual behaviours as has been noted among girls in sub-Saharan Africa. Results from our analyses indicated that even though adolescent girls have a somewhat higher likelihood of reporting sexual abuse and exploitation, the odds of trading sex were significantly elevated for previously traumatized boys (that is those with a history of sexual and physical abuse) but not for their female counterparts. Just like adolescent girls, transactional sexual behaviour was associated with the risk of having concurrent multiple sexual partners for boys. These findings support the reality of boys' sexual exploitation within the African context, and further highlight the importance of including males in general and boys in particular in population-based studies on sexual health, risk, and protective factors in the sub-Saharan African region. Understanding the factors linked to sexual exploitation for both boys and girls will help in developing policies and programs that could improve the overall sexual and reproductive health outcomes among adolescents and youth in sub-Saharan Africa.
非洲青少年性剥削问题的研究在很大程度上忽视了被剥削男孩的经历。迄今为止，撒哈拉以南非洲的大部分研究仍然认为男孩主要是施害者，而不是受害者。本研究利用来自撒哈拉以南非洲四个国家（布基纳法索、加纳、马拉维和乌干达）的唯一公开的基于人群的青少年调查数据，评估了从未结婚的青少年男孩和女孩发生商业性行为的相关因素。我们还研究了男孩报告的性剥削是否与撒哈拉以南非洲女孩所报告的类似危险性行为有关。我们的分析结果表明，尽管少女报告性虐待和性剥削的可能性略高，但以前遭受过创伤的男孩（即有性虐待和身体虐待史的男孩）进行性交易的几率显著升高，而其女性对应者则没有。与少女一样，商业性行为与男孩同时拥有多个性伴侣的风险相关。这些发现支持了非洲背景下男孩性剥削的现实，并进一步强调了在撒哈拉以南非洲地区开展基于人群的性健康、风险和保护因素研究时，将男性、特别是男孩纳入研究的重要性。了解男孩和女孩性剥削的相关因素，将有助于制定政策和方案，改善撒哈拉以南非洲青少年和青年的整体性健康和生殖健康结果。
