Regional baseline survey to establish children's KAPB in relation to sexuality and gender, access to sexuality and HIV information and sexual and reproductive health services in Zambia and South Africa

The overall aim of the project is to establish a baseline of knowledge, attitudes, perceptions and behaviours (KABP) of children between 5 and 17 years in relation to their experiences of sexuality, sexuality information and education and sexuality reproductive health services (SRHS) available to them in four South African and two Zambian designated project areas. This information will be used to enable the development of indicators against which to measure Save the Children Sweden's programme efficacy. A probability sampling approach was used in this study. Using this strategy: We aimed to do 218 interviews from each area selected, 109 will be persons in the 5-11 age group and 109 in the 12 - 17 age group. On this basis we visited 2 087 households against a target of 2 071 in South Africa and 1 020 households were visited in Zambia against a target of 1 021. In each household, we interviewed two people, one in each age group. We did not target any gender group and the sampling statistics shows almost an equal number of males and females. Interviews were conducted with local authorities and service providers to determine their attitudes to SRHS and HIV and AIDS related issues to inform an evaluation of potential positive and negative influences on children's KABP. The results are presented in the order of interviews conducted with 5-8 and 9-11 year olds, followed by adolescents aged 12-17 years. Interviews with parents/ guardians and service providers are presented last.