Teenage girls in the Kingdom of Swaziland, South Africa, will be paid 200 rands (£11) per month if they refuse to have sex, according to reports.
The decision was approved by the government of King Mswati III in a bid to curb HIV transmission in the sovereign state. The programme is said to be financed by the World Bank.
"The government will pay girls the allowances so they will have money to purchase necessities and can turn down money offered to them for sex", said Thabsile Dlamini, a health care worker in Manzini, as reported by South African website
The National Emergency Response Council on HIV and AIDS, a government department tasked with coordinating Swaziland's Aids response reportedly will be monitoring the girls to ensure that they are not having sex after they receive the money.
Similar programs funded by World Bank earlier have been taken up in other African countries but all of them were focused around school attendance.
The initiative, however, has not been well-taken by the young girls. One teenager in Manzini, Zodwa Fakudze, 16, argued that R200 was not sufficient to discourage girls from accepting gifts from older men to have sex.
"Today's girls need things, like airtime for our cellphones. R200 is not enough. That is how much government gives my gogo [grandmother] each month and she will never get Aids because no one over [the age of] 40 has to have sex," she said.
Another girl, Thandi Tfwala, 17, said: "A girl could get R200 for just one sex act. Government must pay more."
Source:Ibitimes
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