O Icheke National Campaign Plan - CONCURRENT SEXUAL ...

National Campaign Plan: Multiple Concurrent Partnerships37Annex 3. ESTIMATES OF MCP IN BOTSWANAHow Many People are Engaged in MCP?It is difficult to quantify the extent of MCP in Botswana with certainty: different quantitative studies indifferent years and with different populations have yielded a range of estimates. From the quantitativestudies, it may be inferred that between one in five and one in three people self-report that they areengaged in MCP, and that the proportion is higher among men than women. However, levels of self-reportedengagement in MCP differ from qualitative perspectives that much larger numbers of people have multipleconcurrent partners.It is important to complement quantitative, self-reported measures of MCP with more qualitative perceptionsof what is really happening in society. During key informants interviews conducted as part of the NationalMCP Campaign Plan development and consultation process:The most common identified sexual relationship was multiple partnersInvestigated further, people felt that multiple partners existed equally among men and women as wellas equally among youth and older people.One informant said that, “In the past, it was the wealthy who had small houses to help other people.Nowadays, even those who are not wealthy are doing it”.Most people felt that all people in their community had multiple partners or small houses.Monogamy was not seen as a common practice among partners, although faith based organizationsand those involved in churches stated that monogamy does occur sometimes within marriages.Estimates of MCP from the key available quantitative sources are, expectedly, lower than ‘everybody’: