| |
| | Harmful Health Practices: Overview and Lessons Learned |
 | | Rates of practice often are high: for example, in Zimbabwe, 80 percent of commercial sex workers interviewed, 93 percent of health clinic attendees, and 80 percent of nurses had used a drying agent at least once (Civic 1996). |
 | | Dry sex preparation can entail inserting herbal leaves or powders, commercial products (for example, toothpaste, antiseptics, or soap), ground stones, or cloth into the vagina either on a regular basis or before sexual intercourse. |
 | | Within the Shona culture, for example, female vaginal fluids are considered unclean, and their removal often is seen as important to creating a clean environment for fertilization. |
| www.rho.org /html/hthps_overview.htm (2801 words) |
|