More AIDS risked as poor women trade sex for food

By Mica Rosenberg

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Rising food prices around the world are likely to drive poor women to trade sex for basic goods like fish and cooking oil, raising the risk of new AIDS infections, U.N officials said on Monday.

Delegates at a major AIDS conference in Mexico cited the cases of fisherwomen in the Pacific and women in Kenya desperate for food being forced to sell their bodies, adding to concerns of a new twist in the spread of the deadly pandemic.

"Food is such a basic need that you can see people really going to great lengths," said Fadzai Mukonoweshuro of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization in southern Africa.

Climbing food prices -- due to increased use of biofuels, the growing demand for grains to feed a booming Asia, droughts and market speculation -- caused 50 million more people to go hungry last year compared to the year before, the United Nations said.

"That might lead to various distress responses, one of which on the part of women is having transactional sex to feed their kids," Stuart Gillespie of the International Food Policy Research Institute said.

"Recent studies in Botswana, Swaziland, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania have shown associations between acute food insecurity and unprotected transactional sex among poor women," he said.

Overfishing of tuna in the Pacific has forced Papua New Guinea fisherwomen to abandon their smaller craft and join the crew of larger boats, where they trade sex for food scraps, the officials and delegates said.

Such "fish for sex" deals are also common in Kenya on the shores of Lake Victoria, where women fish traders meet incoming boats and sleep with fishermen for a favorable price.