Addressing early marriage in areas of high HIV prevalence: a program to delay marriage and support married girls in rural Nyanza Kenya.

Married adolescent girls form a large segment of Kenyan youth yet they are largely overlooked by researchers and programmers concerned with the lives of adolescents. As evidence demonstrates this neglected population of married girls is likely to be vulnerable and in need of support. HIV infection is much higher among adolescent girls in sub-Saharan Africa than among boys. In settings such as Nyanza Province Kenya rates of HIV infection are extremely high and evidence is increasing in some settings that girls who are married are much more likely to be infected with HIV compared with their unmarried counterparts who are sexually active. This brief describes a program addressing the problem of early marriage the reproductive risks associated with early marriage and the risk of HIV infection transmission within marriage. The program was based on the Population Councils analysis of the 2003 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) as well as on formative research within the rural Nyanza community. (excerpt)