A new study entitled ‘’ HIV risk sexual behaviors among teachers in Uganda’’ has found out that most teachers, married and unmarried alike, not only have multiple sexual partners, but also engage in unprotected sex with partners whose status they do not know.
The research was done by Lillian Ayebale, Lynn Atuyambe, William Bazeyo, and Erasmus Otolok Tanga of the Makerere University School of Public health, Centre for Disease control and Prevention, HIV/AIDS Fellowship Program and the project ‘Supporting Public Sector Workplaces to Expand Action and Responses to HIV/AIDS (SPEAR)’ funded by World Vision.
It showed that 45%, which is almost half (82 of 183) of all the teachers surveyed, were living a very risky sexual life, having multiple concurrent sexual partners. Only 24% of the 82 reckless teachers used condoms meaning that 76% of teachers in risky sexual encounter did not use protection at their last sexual encounter yet only 9.8% knew their partners’ HIV status.
When all the teachers surveyed were asked whether they thought condoms would prevent HIV infection, only 59.6% of primary teachers and 55.1% of secondary teachers thought so.
About 71.6% of all the teachers surveyed; were married,’’ the report stated. Only 6% (11 of the 183 teachers surveyed) stated they had not had sex in the last three months.
A counseling psychologist Betty Akrut of Uganda Christian University explains,’’ reckless sexual behavior has its roots in the failure of one to manage their emotions.’’
To be a teacher, Akrut says, requires one to be a role model, ‘’ and the challenge comes when certain people have no values or goals in life, but are assigned such a responsibility.’’
