Protecting Young Women from Hiv/Aids: The Case against Child and Adolescent Marriage

Much is known about the negative mental health impacts of child marriage. In recent years, scholars have continued to explore the short- and long-term physical complications of this human rights abuse as well. Clark et al.’s article, authored for the Guttmacher institute, investigated HIV risks for adolescents. The paper was written with action and policy recommendation in mind so as to suggest concrete steps that readers and policymakers could act upon in order to stymy the effects laid out within the article. Child marriage survivors were found to be at significantly greater risk of HIV as typical “AIDS prevention strategies” such as contraception and abstinence are not “realistic options” for child brides (p. 1). Clark and her coauthors thus recommend delaying the age of marriage as an “important strategy” to limiting HIV transmission (p. 1).