Women's perceptions of male circumcision

About four out of 10 women in a study in Zambia incorrectly believed that circumcision offers men complete protection against HIV. Results from the 934 women who were interviewed in two rounds of surveys in 2010 and 2011, published in PLoS One, reveal a significant increase in the proportion who held this misperception, from 30 percent to 41 percent. Half of the women in round one and 70 percent in round two said that MC reduces women’s risk of acquiring HIV, but whether they were referring correctly to indirect protection through reduced exposure to HIV or incorrectly to direct protection against transmission from a circumcised partner is difficult to interpret. Qualitative results from in-depth interviews with a subsample of 45 of the women suggest that some understood that MC indirectly protects women from HIV, but others overestimated MC’s protective effects. The authors conclude that more efforts are needed to improve women’s understanding of the limits of MC protection (PLoS One, 3 March 2016).