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Low-cost prevention methods are able to reduce unintended pregnancies and curb the spread of HIV among Kenyan girls, a new study has shown.
A survey of 70,000 students in 328 schools over three years by the UK-based NGO Partnership for Child Development said the "simple" provision of free school uniforms to girls reduced the risks associated with them relying on "sugar daddies", older men who often support girls and their families in exchange for sex.
Researchers found that when girls from poverty-stricken families were given free school uniforms instead of having to pay US$6 for them - the main economic barrier to education in Kenya - they were 65 percent less likely to drop out of school and become pregnant.
"That's an important finding, and we can absolutely take it on to refine our programmes for girls," Warren Buckingham, the Kenya coordinator for the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, told the New York Times.
Teenage Kenyan girls are seven times more likely to be HIV-positive than boys of the same age.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions