Factors influencing transactional sex among adolescents and young women in Uganda

Abstract

The study aimed at finding factors influencing transactional sex among adolescents and young women in Uganda. The study used secondary data from the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) 2016 dataset where a total number of 1595 female participants aged 15-24 years were used as a sample and the dependent variable was transactional sex from a UDHS Question “Last 12 months had sex in return for gifts, cash or other”. The study used univariate analysis to describe respondents characteristics and bivariate analysis to differentiate the relationship between the dependent and the independent variables. Findings from the univariate analysis indicated that most of the participants were aged 15-19 years with 50.3%, the richest people highly participated in the study with 30.4%, most of the participants were from the Central 1 region with 10.7%, and that most of the participants were never in union accounting for 75.5%. The study found out that out of the 1595 female participants, 225 of them practiced transactional sex where by 64.9% were aged 15-19 years and 35.1% were aged 20-24 years, 85.9% were never in union and the remaining percentage was for those that were previously in union. By wealth status, the poorer highly practiced transactional sex compared to the others with a percentage of 24.9%. By residence, those who lived in rural areas highly engaged in the practice accounting for 80.4% compared to their counterparts in the urban areas who accounted for 19.6%. Bugishu region had the highest percentage of those who engaged in the practice with 18.2%, those who had primary education as their highest level of education highly practiced transactional sex compared to those with other education levels accounting for 63.6% and only 38.7% of those who practiced transactional sex used a condom during their last sex with the most recent partner. The study found that age, marital status, residence, wealth status, education level and region were found statistically significant with transactional sex (p<0.05). The government of Uganda should encourage and promote girl child education since education is expected to be a protective factor for young girls as those in school are likely to be occupied with school work and assignments and may not have an extra time to socialize in venues where they would be predisposed to engage in risky behaviors such as transactional sex.