MAISHA GIRL CHILD

Child marriage prevalence is the percentage of women 20-24 years old who were married or in a union before they were 18 years old (UNICEF State of the World’s Children, 2023

HIV prevalence is almost four times higher among young women aged 15 to 24 than young men of the same age.9

Challenge

The issues faced by this demographic include gender-based violence (including sexual abuse) and a lack of access to education, health services, social protection, and information about how they cope with these inequities and injustices. Indeed, young Ugandan women who have experienced intimate partner violence are 50% more likely to have acquired HIV than women who have not experienced violence.10
The lack of sexual education is telling. In 2020, only 38.5% of young women and men aged 15-24 could correctly identify ways of preventing the sexual transmission of HIV and rejected major misconceptions about HIV transmission.11

HIV prevalence is almost four times higher among young women aged 15 to 24 than young men of the same age.9

The proportion of women (ages 15-49) who have tested for HIV and received their results in the past 12 months increased from 47.7% in 2012 to 57.1% in 2014 and from 37.4% to 45.6% among men.29
As a result of this discrepancy, only 55% of men and boys living with HIV know their status, compared to 82% of women and girls. Some men report they would rather avoid knowing their HIV status because they associate being HIV-positive with an ‘emasculating’ stigma