Box , Kampala, Uganda. For Correspondence: Prof. Email: jntozi isae. Long distance drivers, prostitutes and barmaids have been identified as the groups that engage in risky sex, which promotes HIV transmission in Uganda and other countries across the continent. For purposes of this paper, only data from the focus group discussions with high-risk groups have been analysed.
These include commercial sex workers, street children, long haul truck drivers, bar maids and adolescents in three towns of Uganda Kabale, Kampala, Lira.
The adolescents and street children were under peer pressure and a lot of sexual urge; commercial sex workers and bar maids attributed their risky behaviour to the need to survive due to the existing poverty; and the truck drivers reflected on the need for female company to reduce their stress while on the long lonely travels across Africa. Nevertheless, they are all aware and perceive people with multiple sexual partners as being highly vulnerable to contracting HIV and they all reported to have adopted condom use as an HIV preventive strategy.
They also observed that married people were at a high risk of contracting HIV due to non-use of condoms in marital relationships and unfaithfulness of spouses. Conclusions Females engage in high-risk sexual relations as a means of economic survival, and perceive their acts as a strategy to improve their socio-economic well being. On the contrary, men in these high-risk categories do such acts out of pleasure and as avenues for attaining fulfilled sexual lives.
The search for money among women and the constant desire for men to have sexual pleasure, which are greatly facilitated by their financial status are the forces behind reckless sexual behaviour among high-risk groups. For example, estimates indicate that there were 1,, and 1,, adults and children living with AIDS as of December and respectively.
