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The expanding AIDS epidemic in Mozambique is fuelled principally by heterosexual transmission, with young people identified as a key group for prevention efforts. However, little is known about the sexual behaviour of young people in Mozambique and the protective practices they adopt. This paper seeks to identify the contexts and rules governing sexual risk-taking among young people in Maputo. In doing so, the paper affirms the importance of context in understanding risk practices, but highlights the fluidity of practice as an important limitation for the use of contextual analysis in prevention interventions. By focusing on one innovation, the saca cena one-night stand, this paper shows how a subgroup of young people in Maputo has redefined a “risky” sexual practice to include exclusive condom use. As a risk context, the saca cena dictates a set of implicit rules emphasizing anonymity, discretion, verbal and non-verbal cues, and for a set of select innovators, condom use. The saca cena challenges the hegemonic gender roles found among many young people in Maputo of male dominance through sexual conquest and female acquiescence. Instead, the practice allows young people to be both adventurous and responsible. The discourse demonstrates how sexual identities have been redefined to combine risk reduction with sexual experimentation and the satiation of desire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing interpersonal communication skills is a key component in HIV prevention. Understanding the contexts and content of communication about HIV and AIDS among young people is important for the development of effective programmes and interventions. The aim of this paper is to build on study findings suggesting that significant differences exist between young people in- and out-of-school in exposure to AIDS-related information and communication in Kilimanjaro. In-depth interviews were conducted with young people between the ages of 13 and 18. Data were analyzed using a thematic and comparative approach to explore similarities and differences. A trinity of factors including access, agency and ambiguity emerged as influencing communication about HIV and AIDS. The role of social networks in structuring differences in communication is examined. Findings reveal a discourse laden with fear and mistrust. Coupled with low levels of health literacy, young people regardless of school attendance demonstrate an inability to critically appraise modes of transmission and prevention. An increased emphasis should be placed on the development of critical health literacy and open dialogue. Accessible, unambiguous and culturally relevant interventions built on an understanding of barriers to open communication, which link with community-based initiatives to stimulate dialogue and debate, are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HIV transmission in Vietnam is strongly linked to drug injection, but there is the potential for an epidemic driven by sexual behaviour. HIV-education programmes to date focus largely on personal responsibility and fail to address adequately other aspects of HIV-related risks in social contexts. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2002, this paper examines the association between HIV-related risks (unsafe drug use and unsafe sex) and gender relations among injecting drug users. Three patterns of relationships are analysed: between injecting drug users and their injecting partners; between injecting drug users and their smoking partners; and between injecting drug users and their non-using partners. Data shows that intimate relations play an important role in managing HIV-related risks among injecting drug users. HIV prevention must pay due attention to the specific contexts of injecting drug users' lives. Some implications of these findings are discussed and relevant recommendations are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In much of HIV/AIDS prevention literature, women are depicted as passive and ill‐equipped to confront the epidemic without external support to enhance their status, autonomy, and negotiation skills. This paper critically evaluates this depiction, using data from in‐depth interviews conducted with married couples in rural Malawi. It focuses on the extent to which married women perceive that they have the ability to protect themselves from infection and on the prevention strategies that they employ. Interview data suggest that women have identified a range of contextually appropriate ways to resist exposure to HIV. These strategies include sitting and discussing the dangers of HIV/AIDS with their husbands; utilizing social networks for advice and as advocates; publicly confronting husbands' girlfriends; and divorcing men who do not adopt safer practices. These locally‐formulated strategies are not likely to be followed consistently, and they may not be the most effective strategies in preventing husbands from straying or protecting women from contracting HIV/AIDS. Their existence, however, demonstrates that rural Malawian women believe that they have some agency to protect themselves; and, they are in fact using locally appropriate strategies to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of men who have sex with men in South Asian countries including Bangladesh have tended to focus mainly on measuring male-to-male sexual risk behaviours, with less attention being given to understanding the nature and meaning of their sexual relations with women. This can result in missed opportunities for HIV/AIDS-related intervention. This paper, based on a small scale qualitative study, attempts to develop a cultural model to understand men who have sex with men's sexual relations with women within a gender and masculinity framework. Findings reveal that in Bangladesh men who have sex with men frequently surrender to societal pressures to marry, become husbands and shoulder fatherhood. This forces some women to become the silent sufferers of some of the negative consequences of hetero-normative patriarchal practice. Importantly, however, men who have sex with men consider sex with women a form of real sex within a framework of masculine sexual potency irrespective of preference, desire or eroticism. Thus, challenges exist to undertaking sexual health promotion and HIV/AIDS prevention in culturally sensitive ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]