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This four-page brief discusses the major factors that place girls at risk of HIV infection: social isolation, absence from school, child marriage, unsafe sex, and pressure to provide productive labor. The document offers suggestions on better reaching girls, including targeting areas with high concentrations of girls, increasing adolescent girls’ attendance in school, delaying marriage, supporting girls-only spaces, mentoring, and livelihoods initiatives.

Attitudes towards gender that are formed in early childhood can play a significant role in creating adult behaviors that lead to the spread of HIV/AIDS. This working paper explores how to use the early years to lay the foundations for HIV/AIDS prevention.

This paper explores the relationship between economic independence, empowerment, and reproductive health for girls and young women. With a focus on East and Southern Africa, it uses examples of promising programs to highlight potential responses and lessons learned.

This 5-page brochure focuses on factors that increase girls' risk of HIV/AIDS. Illustrated with orange and white text and graphics, this brochure aims to provide some basic facts about HIV/AIDS and girls. The brochure also suggests solutions to help protect girls and enable them to protect themselves from this pandemic. It is one of a series to help NGOs protect the needs and rights of girls through action and advocacy.

Prepared for the UNESCO Institute for Education workshop "Learning and Empowerment: Key Issues in Strategies for HIV/AIDS Prevention" (Chiangmai, Thailand, March 2004), this 25-page report explores and evaluates the work of the South African organization DramAidE. Established in 1992, DramAidE (Drama in AIDS Education) uses drama, peer education, and participatory media development in an effort to critically engage young people to communicate effectively about issues relating to sex, sexuality, and HIV/AIDS.

YouthNet has conducted seven formal assessments of reproductive health (RH) and HIV/AIDS issues related to youth —in Burundi, Ethiopia, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Tanzania. Aimed at strengthening the programs and services offered to youth, each of the assessments included a review of documents and an on-site assessment of current youth RH and HIV/AIDS programs, including unmet needs.  This Brief is a summary of the common themes from the assessments.

This issue brief provides an overview of the impact of HIV/AIDS on young people around the world using a variety of sources and studies. It includes specific data on youth prevalence rates, organized by gender and region. It also predicts the future impact on youth, with a section on each youth group considered at risk. Certain subpopulations of youth have been identified as bearing a disproportionate share of HIV's proliferation and/or are at increasing risk: young women and girls, young men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, sex workers and children who have been orphaned by AIDS are at a high or increasing risk of becoming infected.

A PSI study of Kenyan women's and men's motivations for entering into cross-generational relationships and their risk perceptions of such relationships shows that most participants underestimate the risk of sexually-transmitted infections and HIV. HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects young African women as compared to older men. This research brief examines the motivations for cross-generational relationships, the perceived risks of these relationships, and condom use.

Behavioral, physiological and socio-cultural factors make young people more vulnerable than adults to HIV infection. This report provides a regional overview of adolescents' knowledge of HIV/AIDS and behaviors in Sub-Saharan Africa that put them at risk for or protect them from infection. It also examines the social and economic context of adolescents' lives. All of these factors are fundamental to understanding the progression of the epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, knowing the risk and protective behaviors identified in this report, which are generally not monitored by surveillance systems that track HIV/AIDS levels and trends, is essential for guiding the efforts of policymakers and providers of health information and services to young people - at both the regional and the country levels.

This is a brief based on a background paper prepared for the WHO/UNFPA/Population Council Technical Consultation on Married Adolescents held in Geneva, Switzerland, 9–12 December 2003. Over the next decade in developing countries, more than 100 million girls under the age of 18, "children" as defined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, will be married. In countries with HIV epidemics, these girls, most of whom live in Africa and Asia, are at substantial risk for HIV/AIDS infection. The Consultation brought together experts from the United Nations, donors, and nongovernmental agencies to consider the evidence regarding married adolescent girls’ reproductive health, vulnerability to HIV infection, social and economic disadvantage, and rights. The relationships to major policy initiatives—including safe motherhood, HIV, adolescent sexual and reproductive health, and reproductive rights—were explored, and emerging findings from the still relatively rare programmes that are directed at this population were discussed.

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) co-hosted a three-week email discussion on Young Women and HIV/AIDS. The discussion explored the (i) Intersections between youth, gender and HIV/AIDS; (ii) Emerging challenges and successes in HIV/AIDS for young people (particularly young women); and (iii) Ways in which youth can participate in addressing gender and youth issues in HIV/AIDS programs. A booklet based on the on-line discussion was produced.  This booklet is targeted at young women who are leaders in their communities. It provides an overview of the on-line discussions, highlights and profiles young women’s leadership in HIV/AIDS, and provides useful activities for those who want to start campaigns to raise awareness and decrease stigma in their communities.

This report focuses on one crucial aspect of adolescent reproductive rights in Zimbabwe: the right to access dual protection methods and information. The "right to access dual protection methods and information" is a component of a broader set of internationally recognized reproductive rights, including the fundamental rights to reproductive self-determination, to non-discrimination, and to reproductive health care. The report documents legal, policy and social barriers to Zimbabwean adolescents' enjoyment of their rights. Using a human rights fact-finding methodology, conclusions and recommendations are made based upon an analysis of Zimbabwean laws and policies, as well as interviews conducted with over 800 adolescents, parents, family members, government officials and service providers.

This collection of documents consists of a three part series that addresses three different topics related to HIV/AIDS. The initial document consists of the introduction and the existing research framework. The first section, on young people and risk-taking in sexual relations, consists of a set of studies that presents a comparative analysis of data collected in Africa, Asia and the Americas. This is followed by a comparative analysis of data regarding a community's response to AIDS. The third set of studies addresses the use of the female condom based on data collected in 4 countries on gender relations, sexual communication and negotiation.

Individuals interested in youth development are considering programs that integrate attention to reproductive and sexual health with a focus on livelihood options, which aim to improve young people's capabilities, assets, and activities necessary for earning a living. Given the critical gap in assessment of the few such linked programs, ICRW undertook an 18-month analysis of these programs in India, Colombia, and Kenya. The goals of this analysis were to foster a better understanding of the mechanisms, challenges, and potential merits of the programs, and to provide a clearer understanding of whether interventions that link reproductive health and livelihoods can effectively and efficiently improve the lives of youth.

"Living for Tomorrow" is a development and research HIV prevention project based in Estonia, targeting young people and the difficulties faced by educators in actively involving youth in safe sexual behavior. Its approach is to build sexual health awareness while looking at how gender norms in society actually dictate and produce unsafe and damaging sexual relations between men and women.

There are 11.8 million young people (aged 15-24) living with HIV/AIDS globally -- 7.3 million are young women and 4.5 million are young men. This report contains important new data about why young people are key to defeating the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, including results from more than 60 new national surveys. It reaffirms that we must accord top priority to making investments in the well-being of young people and to engaging them in the fight against HIV/AIDS [adapted from author].

Today's young people are the AIDS generation. They have never known a world without HIV. Millions have already died. Yet the HIV/AIDS epidemic among youth remains largely invisible to adults and to young people themselves. Stopping HIV/AIDS requires comprehensive strategies that focus on youth. This report focuses on why youth are vulnerable, what steps can be taken to address the epidemic and potential avenues for action.

'Auntie Stella' was originally produced as an activity pack for use in schools with young Zimbabweans aged 13 to 17 years, and later developed as a website. It has been used in schools to stimulate discussion among young people on key teenage issues, and also gives information that teenagers find hard to get elsewhere. Both the print and website versions use the question and reply format of problem page letters written to agony aunts in magazines, a popular source of information for young people. There are over 30 'questions' covering physical and emotional changes in adolescence, relationships with parents, peers and the opposite sex, gender roles, forced sex, HIV/AIDS and STIs.

For women and adolescent girls, the consequence of AIDS can be particularly dire. There is strong evidence, for example, that in some countries women may be "blamed" for HIV disease even in circumstances where they have been infected by remaining faithful to their husband or other male partner. There is also evidence to suggest that women are less likely to receive the kind of care and support made available to male household members. Moreover, where the male head of household has died there may be loss of social support for young women, ostracization from the community, and lack of legal protection to inherit land and property. Some young women may find themselves unwelcome in the extended family and may even be coerced into sex work. The report discusses these issues and outlines some programme implications and recommendations.

In recent years, increasing attention has been placed on the need to integrate a gender-based approach into efforts to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This paper addresses the risks and needs of male and female adolescents in relation to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the broader area of sexual and reproductive (SRH) health. It begins with a brief review of the risks to which adolescents are exposed and then proposes an SRH rights framework within which the risks and needs of both HIV-negative and HIV-positive teenagers can be examined. The paper concludes with a few recommendations.