New drugs may protect girls having sex with older men from HIV

When Lesedi was growing up in Johannesburg, South Africa’s commercial capital, her family was so poor that she used a cloth filled with sand as a makeshift sanitary product. That changed when, at the age of 14 (which is below the legal age of consent), she began having sex with a man nearly 15 years older who gave her rides to school and bought her toiletries. The boyfriends who followed in her teenage years and early twenties were increasingly generous. “If I were to date you, you had to make sure that you’re working first,” says Lesedi (whose name we have changed). “Love alone can’t give me food.” One married man paid for her apartment and outfits, and gave her money to support her family. She got everything she wanted, says Lesedi, until she found out that she was infected with HIV.