Young, innocent and wedded to AIDS risk

© Roger Allen/The Mirror

In some parts of the world, getting married is the worst thing a young woman can do if she wants to protect herself from HIV.

Imagine you are the girl in the scenario below:

• you are 13 years old and are married before your first menstruation
• you didn't get a choice of husband: he is much older and sexually experienced
• you know about HIV and how to prevent it. You are faithful. Your husband is not
• you are expected to bear children (and often will have a child before you are 16). Therefore, condom use is not an option
• you live in Niger, where the UN estimates that almost 80,000 people are HIV positive

Young married women represent a large portion of the innocent victims behind the AIDS statistics.

Alarmingly, HIV in developing countries is spreading rapidly amongst married adolescent girls. A Population Council study found that 80% of unprotected sex with adolescent girls occurs within marriage. And, married girls are more likely to be infected with HIV than their unmarried peers.

In typical agrarian societies, young women often don't have a say in who they marry. Typical husbands are much older and sexually experienced. They commonly have extra-marital sexual relations, and transmit the infection to their young brides. The young girls in the statistics have mostly never taken drugs. They have never slept with anyone except their husband.

Plan is working to address this issue at both local and national levels in Niger. This work is making a difference.

A study, undertaken by Plan and a local agency in Niger, found that in the rural district of Dosso 7 out of 10 of women got married before their first menstruation, and half had their given birth before the age of 16. Niger has one of the highest rates of child marriage in sub-Saharan Africa.

Local men regarded early marriage as a way of preserving the honour of their family, whilst women believed that a child born of a very young woman would be stronger, fiercer and more resilient.

The odds don’t stack in the favour of child brides:

• girls are very often exposed to HIV at a much younger age than men
• HIV is more easily transmitted to females than to males
• prevention messages focus on behaviours not in the control of young brides who are expected to bear children: abstinence, condom use, and mutual fidelity

By international convention, 18 years is the legal age for consent to marriage. Yet, in many countries, girls are married at a much younger age, often against their will. If the current practice does not change, 100 million girls under the age of 18 will be married over the next ten years, almost all of them to partners who are considerably older.

The tide of change

Community attitudes in Dosso have now begun to change, as a result of a public education campaign using many different media and involving children, parents, religious leaders, and traditional authorities. 

Many parents now consider early marriage a potential health problem for their daughters.

With support from Plan, community schools have opened, where girls can continue their education. A microfinance program offers credit to young women to start their own business.  At national level, Plan is advocating for the Niger government to introduce a law against early marriage.