Dimakatso, 23, lives in Soshanguve, South Africa. Her father passed away a little over a year ago, forcing her mother to relocate to a neighboring town for work, and leaving Dimakatso as the primary caregiver to her 11-month-old baby, two younger siblings, and five-year-old nephew. What made these challenges even more difficult was that Dimakatso had been diagnosed with HIV at age 18.

In Dimakatso’s community, poverty, unemployment, crime, and drug abuse, coupled with discriminatory cultural attitudes toward women and gender-based violence are, sadly, the daily norm. Judgmental attitudes took a significant toll on a teenage Dimaktso. She went from being an outgoing young woman, to hiding at home and avoiding people. When she became pregnant, she was deeply concerned that she might pass the virus on to her unborn child.

Dimakatso is not an unusual case.

Women and adolescent girls living with HIV are particularly affected by violence, stigma, and discrimination. As a result, they are at risk of being pushed to society’s margins.

UNAIDS reports that one in three women living with HIV reported discrimination related to their sexual and reproductive health. Furthermore, huge disparities in new HIV infections exist between young women and young men in the same age bracket. UNAIDS data indicate that every week, around 6,000 young women aged 15–24 years become infected with HIV. In sub-Saharan Africa, four in five new infections among adolescents aged 15–19 years are in girls. Young women aged 15–24 years are twice as likely to be living with HIV than men.

Read the full article about the frontline of HIV/AIDS by Frank Beadle de Palomo at Skoll Foundation.