About 30 million people currently live in Uganda, with just over 70 per cent of the population under 24 years of age. Despite economic progress and development experts considering Uganda as “a model of success and a source of stability in an otherwise troubled sub-region of Africa”, more than 50 per cent of Ugandans live in poverty.
Although the national HIV prevalence rate of adults has dropped to 5.4 per cent since the pandemic in the 1990s, the rate currently rests at 3.9 per cent amongst girls aged 15-24 and 1.3 per cent amongst boys of the same age. Poverty and inadequate access to contraceptives and sexual and reproductive health information, as well as traditional customary practices, such as female genital mutilation and early marriage, are not helping the HIV/AIDS problem.

Highest teenage pregnancy rate in Sub-Saharan Africa

Living in poverty and confronted with peer pressure, young women often turn to sex in exchange for gifts. Only around half of the sexually active youth aged 15-24 use condoms and the teenage pregnancy rate in Uganda, at 31 per cent, is the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. Young women constitute nearly half of all maternal deaths, due to an increased risk of complications in pregnancy and birth, which in turn often leads to obstetric fistula. HIV/AIDS related fear and stigma remain widespread although political commitment has considerably raised awareness on the topic.

Since 1993, HIV/AIDS education has become part of the school curriculum and some of the highest levels of government have implemented a number of awareness-raising policies, including an “abstinence-until-marriage” programme. NGOs, governmental bodies, religious leaders and youth leaders have worked together over recent years to create educational materials for primary schools and to establish community-based activities aimed at young people, both in and out of school, addressing these problems.