Kenya

Among Kenya’s total population of 32.7 million, more than a million people are living with HIV and AIDS. Despite recent declines in HIV prevalence rates in Kenya, women bear a disproportionate burden of the disease, comprising 60 percent of people living with HIV and AIDS. Women are largely marginalized in Kenya, and the country’s efforts to combat the pandemic have failed to address women’s issues such as treatment of HIV-positive widows, property rights and domestic violence, all of which contribute to the spread of HIV and AIDS.

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Poverty
Shortly after gaining independence in 1964, Kenya boasted a thriving economy considered one of the most prosperous in East Africa. But economic progress dropped sharply in the mid-1970s because of government mismanagement and corruption coupled with a drought that devastated Kenya’s agricultural industry.

From 1990 to 2003, nearly 60 percent of the population lived on less than $2 a day, and women made up a majority of the poor. Girls are much more likely than boys to drop out of school because of unwanted pregnancies, early marriages and poverty resulting from the death of parents, often due to AIDS. Women cannot own land and other property - circumstances that keep them poor and heighten their risk of HIV infection.

Overview of Kenya Population