VOA标准英语2013--小补助使南非女孩免受艾滋之苦

 

Study: Small Grants Can Protect SAF Teenage Girls from HIV 研究:小额赠款可以保护SAF少女少受艾滋病病毒的感染

A new study shows that alleviating¹ poverty can help protect South African teenage girls from HIV/AIDS. It says small, monthly government grants allow girls to live more normal lives and avoid the advances of older men. The older men are called sugar daddies. They’ve got cash and use it to lure² poor girls into having sex with them.

“Throughout sub-Saharan Africa teenage girls face a huge risk, which is poverty. And many of them really struggle to pay for basic things in their families, like food. So, about 25 percent of the children in our sample don’t have enough to eat in their families for at least two days in the past week,” said Dr. Lucie Cluver, associate professor at Oxford³ University and the University of Cape⁴ Town and the lead author of the study.

“One of the biggest reasons that girls talk about having older boyfriends – or having transactional sex or sugar daddies – is because they need to pay school fees and they need to provide food for their family. And that’s especially bad when someone is ill in their family. So if they’re living with a grandmother who’s old and very frail⁵ or if they’re living with someone who’s very sick with HIV/AIDS or something else, then it’s even harder because they have to support that person.”

Boys do not face the same burden.

Cluver said, “Really it’s about the market. It’s a buyers and a sellers market. What you do get is older men who have access to cash, who are looking for younger girlfriends. You just don’t seem to see the sugar mommy syndrome⁶, where you would have an older woman and a younger boy. You just don’t seem to see it.”

Some people may have the wrong impression about why teenage girls have sugar daddies or older boyfriends.

“A lot of what people have talked about when they talk about transactional sex and sugar daddies has been seeing teenage girls as choosing to have these older boyfriends because they give them nice toiletries and hair stuff and cellphones and luxuries. So they’ve seen it as something that these girls have been choosing to do because they’re aspirational⁷ – because they’re trying to, you know, look like Beyoncé,” she said.

The average age of the more than 3,500 South African girls interviewed for the study is 14.

Cluver said the South African government has expanded an older grant program. It now provides child support grants of about $35 a month to 11 million children under age 18.

“In a sub-Saharan African country, we have a government grant system that provides for every child who is poor and who needs the money. When I started working as a social worker in the early 2000s, that grant system was originally designed for white families under Apartheid. And they moved it to cover all families who are in need, so, including the huge populations of black and colored families in South Africa,” she said.

The South African government also provides foster child grants of $96 a month to about 600,000 people. But Cluver said many needy⁸ children are still not yet covered by the program.

In Malawi and Tanzania, studies show that grants or cash transfers can have a positive effect. For example, in Malawi, cash transfers to girls resulted in a lower HIV prevalence rate. A big reason is that girls start dating boys their own age, who are less likely than older men to be infected with the AIDS virus.

But the grant system is not perfect. The study says grants do not reduce other kinds of risks for girls, such as the likelihood of having unprotected sex or having sex while drunk. And the grant system does not reduce the HIV risk for boys.

1 alleviating   

减轻，缓解，缓和( alleviate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• If it's alleviating pain,who knows what else it's doing? 如果它减轻了疼痛，天知道还影响什么？
• Measuring poverty is not the same as alleviating it, of course. 当然，衡量贫困和减轻贫困是截然不同的。

2 lure   

n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引

参考例句：

• Life in big cities is a lure for many country boys.大城市的生活吸引着许多乡下小伙子。
• He couldn't resist the lure of money.他不能抵制金钱的诱惑。

3 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

4 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

5 frail   

adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的

参考例句：

• Mrs. Warner is already 96 and too frail to live by herself.华纳太太已经九十六岁了，身体虚弱，不便独居。
• She lay in bed looking particularly frail.她躺在床上，看上去特别虚弱。

6 syndrome   

n.综合病症；并存特性

参考例句：

• The Institute says that an unidentified virus is to blame for the syndrome. 该研究所表示,引起这种综合症的是一种尚未确认的病毒。
• Results indicated that 11 fetuses had Down syndrome. 结果表明有11个胎儿患有唐氏综合征。

7 aspirational   

志同的，有抱负的

参考例句：

• Most of the images that bombard us all are aspirational. 轰击的图像，我们都期望最大。
• Analysts said self-help and aspirational reading could explain India's high figures. 分析师们指出，自助读书、热爱读书是印度人均读书时间超过别的国家的主要原因。

8 needy   

adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的

参考例句：

• Although he was poor,he was quite generous to his needy friends.他虽穷，但对贫苦的朋友很慷慨。
• They awarded scholarships to needy students.他们给贫苦学生颁发奖学金。