Nyamapanda — As the night grew darker at Nyamapanda business centre a jukebox could be heard at one of the night spots loudly playing one of Yvonne Chaka Chaka's 1980s hit songs Take my love it's free.

A crowd began swelling outside the nightclub, venue of a live performance by one of Zimbabwe's music icons, Nicholas Zacharia.

A message on the ravages of the HIV/Aids pandemic from the popular singer affectionately known as the "Senior Lecturer" that warm night could have done the trick in changing the immoral behavioral patterns in the border town if only the revellers were interested in such a lecture.

But unfortunately the main reason for attending the show was purely entertainment in an area starved of other forms of amusements outside the consumption of alcohol and prostitution, a trade that has taken root in the remote settlement and increasingly attracting younger members as poverty and hunger take their toll.

A complete collapse of the country's education system that has seen teachers emigrating or simply staying at home due to the way below poverty margin salaries has resulted in girls being forced into prostitution to survive.

Increased traffic of Zimbabweans travelling to the border town to buy food across in Mozambique has also attracted scores of villagers among them the young girls whose youthfulness is an instant attraction to male prostitutes.

"Female prostitutes here are getting younger. Some of them must be in Grade Seven," said one reveller downing a can of beer as he waited for the show to begin.

And judging by the vulgar language in the crowd it is clear that by the time the show starts most of the revellers would be silly drunk.

It would be folly to imagine therefore that a teenager, especially a young girl, hanging around such a place would leave "unscathed".

The young girls, aware of the fact that under the country's laws they are not allowed to enter nightclubs, hang about in small groups in secluded places. The live performance will be so loud that they can hear from outside while they solicit for clients.

With Mudzi among the country's poorest districts with no proper access to national television or radio broadcasts the live musical show also attracted other girls and boys who hope to hear the singer play and hopefully catch a glimpse of the sungura icon.

But under the cover of darkness in which drunkards prowl for young blood, it would by sheer luck for these young girls to escape some form of abuse or molestation.

Nora Krantzler, a researcher with an international non-profit making organisation, ETR Associates, highlighting the effects of alcohol on HIV/ AIDS spread says: "A person who has been drinking is more likely to pressure someone to take risks or to give in to pressure to have unsafe sex..."

Krantzler cautions that because "you cannot tell by looking if someone has HIV" and "although there are treatments for HIV, it (HIV) is still a life threatening disease. The best was to protect yourself against HIV is to make decisions about sex and drugs and stick to them no matter what. Drinking alcohol can make it harder to do this."

As Zimbabwe joined the world on December 1 to commemorate World Aids Day the plight of girls ravaged by poverty and hunger brought some sobering thoughts to the nation.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef): "Poverty exacerbates the effects of HIV/ AIDS.

"It entrenches social, economic and gender disparities and undermines protective family environments... Some 300 million children go to bed hungry every day."

Unicef also says some 13 percent of children aged between seven and 18 years in developing countries have never attended school with 32 percent of girls in sub-Saharan Africa out of school, yet education is perhaps a child's strongest barrier against poverty, particularly for girls.

"Educated girls are likely to marry later and have healthier children. They are more productive at home and better paid in the workplace, better able to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS and more able to participate in decision-making at all levels," says Unicef.

Although Zimbabwe maintained a fine education record ever since Independence in 1980, achieving more than 90 percent literacy rates, an economic and political turmoil of huge proportion is slowly wiping out all the gains made so far.

The Zimbabwe government embarked on the education for all programme as a tool to fight poverty in the country.

However, in an effort to further eradicate poverty by parcelling out fertile land to the majority poor indigenous people the government's agricultural revolution ironically partly helped trigger the country's prevailing hunger and poverty whose ripple effects have destroyed, more critically the education and health sectors.

Zimbabwe's health sector, like education, has virtually collapsed and the situation has presented some complexities in the fight against HIV/Aids. Without adequate data it has become difficult to ascertain whether the country's 15.6 percent prevalence rate for the 15 to 49 years age group still stands. With 2007 statistics by the United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids indicating that 90 percent of these infected in Zimbabwe are not aware of their HIV status, it would be a sheer miracle if the prevalence rate has not increased given the difficulties the people of Zimbabwe are currently experiencing.

The UNAIDS fact sheet also shows that girls in the 15-19 age group are the most vulnerable to HIV infection and over 80 000 people are on anti-retroviral drugs out of a possible 350 000.

Communications officer for UNAIDS in Zimbabwe, Tariro Chidamoyo said: "We don't have documented statistics on the effect of poverty and hunger on HIV/AIDS but there is a possibility that there has been some effect."

Chidamoyo says the organisation relies mainly on information supplied by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare which she says has unfortunately been experiencing major problems in caring out its work.

The Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Service executive director, Lois Chingandu believes that: "Only through structured discussions and debates on the policies existing around HIV, culture and gender can we begin to redress the imbalanced environment which continues to put certain groups at greater risk of HIV infection."