Background: Women, HIV/AIDS, and Education in Zimbabwe

“The spread of HIV/AIDS will not be stopped unless the human rights of women and girls are at the centre of the response.”

– UNICEF

Tariro’s work with orphaned Zimbabwean girls emphasizes the importance of women’s education as an effective response to the AIDS epidemic. Young women orphaned by HIV/AIDS are often forced to drop out of school due to a lack of financial resources, putting them at extremely high risk for contracting HIV themselves. Education can reverse this negative cycle, empowering young women to build a future free from poverty and disease. Read on below to find out more about the positive effects of women’s education in the prevention of HIV/AIDS. Or, visit the Our Work section of our site to find out more about what Tariro is doing to ensure that orphaned Zimbabwean girls are able to complete a secondary school education.

Why are women and girls at higher risk for contracting HIV/AIDS?

“Girls and young women are highly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, and a lack of education makes them more so. Girls are at greater risk than boys because of gender inequalities in status, power, and access to resources.” – World Bank

Around the world, women and girls are more susceptible to contracting HIV/AIDS for a variety of reasons, including social, economic, and educational disparities. Socially, women may be at higher risk for HIV infection due to factors such as their role as caretakers for relatives already infected with HIV/AIDS. Desperate economic conditions also contribute to putting women and girls at high risk for contracting HIV/AIDS by forcing women to trade sex for food and other necessities. Lower literacy rates and education levels among women and girls further compound these social and economic factors, making it more difficult for women to access accurate information about how to protect themselves from HIV infection. Together, these factors put women and girls in an extremely high risk category for becoming infected with HIV/AIDS.

Tariro’s focus on young women and girls is a strategic move to work toward promoting gender equality as a necessary step in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS.

How does education protect young women against HIV/AIDS?

“Growing evidence shows that getting and keeping young people in school, particularly girls, dramatically lowers their vulnerability to HIV… Evidence from Zimbabwe shows that among 15-18 year old girls, those who are enrolled in school are more than five times less likely to have HIV than those who have dropped out.” – Global Coalition on Women and AIDS

Attending school dramatically reduces the risk that a young Zimbabwean women will become infected with HIV/AIDS. School attendance reduces HIV infection rates in at least three ways. First, school enrollment delays the onset of sexual activity among young people, reducing their risk of infection. Second, school attendance and participation in HIV/AIDS education in schools improves girls’ knowledge about HIV/AIDS. For example, Zimbabwean girls with a secondary school education are 25.7% more likely to know that a healthy person can be infected by HIV/AIDS than those who have not completed secondary school. (Girls, HIV/AIDS, and Education, p. 28) Third, the knowledge girls gain at school increases their ability to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. In Zimbabwe, girls with a secondary school education are 29.1% more likely to know where to access a counseling and testing center, and 4.7% more likely to use condoms during sex than those who have not attended secondary school.

Completing a secondary school education is the single most important factor in reducing a young woman’s risk of becoming infected with HIV/AIDS. For Zimbabwean girls, education is a life-saving opportunity. Tariro’s work with orphaned girls makes this opportunity available to the most vulnerable members of Zimbabwean society.

What makes orphaned girls more likely than their peers to drop out of school?

“Girls are more likely than boys to be retained at home for domestic work when household income drops due to AIDS deaths or to care for sick relatives. Thus HIV/AIDS reduces girls’ already low enrollment in secondary and tertiary education.” – World Bank

Like many other African nations, Zimbabwe requires each child to pay mandatory school fees, and to buy their own uniforms, textbooks, and supplies. Students without sufficient resources to cover these costs are not permitted to attend school, depriving them of the chance to complete even a basic education. Children orphaned by AIDS, and who live with extended family members such as elderly grandparents, often have no one to pay these costs, and are unable to continue attending school. Orphaned girls are especially vulnerable, as they are more likely to drop out of school than their male counterparts. Girls may be required to drop out of school in order to care for ill relatives, or for younger siblings. They may be expected to contribute to the household by doing domestic work at home instead of attending school. Social expectations may also favor the education of boys over that of girls, as girls are expected to become wives and mothers, while boys are expected to seek employment in the formal sector.

Tariro believes that education is a basic human right, and should be available to all children, regardless of socio-economic status. By working with young women orphaned by HIV/AIDS, Tariro seeks to meet the challenge of ensuring that even the most vulnerable Zimbabwean children have access to the life-saving opportunity of obtaining an education.

Please visit the Our Work section of our site to find out more about Tariro’s program, and the services we provide to enable young women orphaned by HIV/AIDS to complete a secondary school education.