Fighting HIV/AIDS in South Africa: Jerry Springer-style

South Africans have an unusual way of fighting AIDS:

On Thursday nights in Soweto, several hundred thousand listeners switch on their radios, tune to the only local township station and wait for the gravelly, suave voice and the pumping background music.

"Cheaters," the voice says, "is not for sensitive listeners. It contains strong language, and it challenges your emotions."

And all of a sudden, in this sprawling South African township that was once the heart of the anti-apartheid struggle, a live, Jerry Springer-style slugfest surges across the airwaves. Cheating spouses are exposed for all to hear, lovers are confronted on air. Every now and then, a fight breaks out.

It seems like a trashy reality knockoff. But the show's creators say the year-old "Cheaters" has a deeper purpose: AIDS has ravaged the black community in South Africa, and public shaming is necessary to enforce a kind of morality that might reduce virus-spreading sexual behavior.

"We thought we needed a program that would bring people back to their senses," said Refilwe Monageng, the public relations director at Jozi FM. "We are all about moral regeneration."

Dozens of Sowetans die each week of complications from AIDS, according to radio funeral announcements. The World Health Organization has put South Africa's AIDS-related death toll at around 370,000 a year.

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