16-årig HIV-smittad åtalad för våldtäkt mot barn i Linköping 2017-03-27

A survey by the University Of South Africa (UNISA) in South Africa found that 18 percent of laborers thought that having sex with a virgin cures HIV/AIDS. An earlier study in 1999 by sexual health educators in Gauteng reported that 32 percent of the survey participants believed the myth.[5]
According to the controversial Betty Makoni of the Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe,[6] the myth is perpetuated by traditional healers advising HIV-positive men to cure their disease by having sex with virgin girls.[7] In Zimbabwe, some people also believe that the blood produced by raping a virgin will cleanse the infected person's blood of the disease.[7]
In 2002, psychologist Mike Earl-Taylor wrote that the virgin cure myth may explain the staggering rise in child or infant rapes in South Africa, which is facing an HIV/AIDS epidemic.[3] UNICEF has attributed the rape of hundreds of girls to the virgin cleansing myth.[8]
However, it is unknown exactly how common the myth is and to what degree rapes happen because of the belief in it. The claim that the myth drives either HIV infection or child sexual abuse in Africa is disputed by researchers Rachel Jewkes and Helen Epstein,[9] as well as by research on convicted sex offenders in Malawi, where no evidence was found to support the idea that the virgin cleansing myth prompted any rapes.