Young Women and HIV in Africa

The objective of the project is to contribute to HIV prevention among young women in Africa. Young people, and especially young women in Southern Africa experience some of the highest HIV rates in the world. Prevention progamms have shown mixed success, often because of low uptake. There is an urgent need to better understand how young people themselves perceive "HIV risk" and what the barriers are to make use of the most effective available prevention options such as condoms, and PrEP (preventive pills). Structural factors such as gender inequality or low level of education are also believed to play an important role.
We propose to carry out research to increase our knowledge and understanding on how women can protect themselves against HIV, as well as provide support to women's empowerment activities including educational opportunities. The activities will be supervised by M. Laga's team at ITM, but led on site by African women.
The ultimate aim is to reduce the rate of new HIV infections among African women. We will contribute to this aim by increasing our strategic knowledge which can lead to better policy formulation and strengthening prevention programs. We will also directly contribute to empowerment of African women to protect themselves better against HIV. This will be done by African women for African women, coordinated by CeSHHAR, a research group with strong links with multiple community based women's organizations.