Yet, there is no evidence to suggest that sex education in schools leads to earlier or increased sexual activity. On the contrary, a number of studies have shown that sex education increases the adoption of safer sexual practices and tends to lead young people to postpone sex. Women Women are increasingly becoming infected with HIV and at a significantly younger age than men. As of late 1995, almost 9,000,000 women had been infected with HIV since the start of the epidemic. By the year 2000, over 14,000,000 women are expected to have been infected and 4,000,000 of them to have died.
Women are biologically, epidemiologically and socially more vulnerable.
For example, women tend to marry or have sex with men older than themselves, who may have had more sexual partners and hence be more likely to have become infected. In some relationships or cultural environments, it is almost impossible for women to insist on protecting themselves against the virus, through mutual fidelity or condom use. In other cultures, men expect sex with any women receiving their financial support. As infections in women rise, so do infections in the infants born to them. Perinatal transmission can occur during pregnancy, during delivery and through breast- feeding.