Marital Practices Targeting Women and its Implication on HIV/ AIDS Preventive Campaigns in South-West, Nigeria
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Date
2016
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Ethiop.j.soc.lang.stud
Abstract
In the fight against HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, the incorporation of marital values and
practices tenet in the campaign programmes remain one of the major assets that has
remained untapped. This study was conducted towards understanding the positive
and negative marital values and practices in Nigeria and how they can improve
HIV/AIDS preventive campaigns. In-depth interviews were conducted on married
young people who reside in Abeokuta town in South West, Nigeria. The first and the
second categories were HIV positive and HIV negative respectively. The findings
show that there are some marital values and practices which promote risky sexual
behaviour among men which leads to HIV/AIDS while some curtails sexual excesses
particularly among females. Some of the female informants indicated that some
marital values and practices were promoting social cohesion and unity while others
were having negative influence on their physical and psychological health. Majority
of the informants testified that cultural values and practices gave married men the
permissiveness to involve in extra marital affairs. The consequences of the above
scenario make more women to be vulnerable to HIV/AIDS than their male
counterparts. These findings show that inculcating marital virtues into HIV/AIDS
preventive communication campaigns would reduce the prevalence of HIV/AIDS
among married couple. This study concludes that there is a need to specifically
design marital sensitive HIV/AIDS preventive campaigns specifically for married
individuals.
Description
Keywords
HIV, AIDS, Marriage, Practice, Married individuals, Values