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The Thought Show: HIV in Africa; Hate Speech; Safe Space

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HIV in Africa

09/06/2016 GMT

HIV in Africa; Hate Speech; Safe Space

BBC World Service - The Thought Show, HIV in Africa; Hate Speech; Safe Space

Why a claim that 74 % of African girls aged 15 – 24 are HIV positive is untrue

Why a claim that 74 % of African girls aged 15 – 24 are HIV positive is untrue, why a hashtag “I stand with hate speech” has been trending and the meaning of “safe space”.

The news aggregation website Zimbabwe Today recently ran a headline stating that 74% of African girls aged 15-24 are HIV positive. Although the statistic is not true, Mary Mahy from UNAIDS reveals that young women do have a higher infection rate than young men.
And Kyle Evans, a folk singing mathematician, performs his competition entry for the international Cheltenham Science festival in England in the studio for More Or Less.

The hashtag 'I stand with hate speech' has been trending in several countries, causing outrage as tens of thousands of people appeared to support online abuse. But the hashtag’s supporters claim they’re simply taking a stand for freedom of expression on the internet. BBC Trending also meets some of the Pakistani women who've been reacting to a recent suggestion that men in the country should be allowed to beat their wives, as long as it's done ‘lightly’.

The university experience is expected to train the minds of students by exposing them to new ideas and challenging their assumptions. Why then, in the English speaking west at least, are some students rebelling against this principle by insisting there are some ideas which are so abhorrent they should not be heard? To them a university should be a safe space. In the Why Factor, Mike Williams tries to discover where the balance lies between freedom of speech and protection from offence.

(Photo: HIV test in Africa. Credit: Polepole-tochan/Getty Images)

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