Like tens of millions of young people around the world, 17-year-old Melissa’s life was turned upside down when COVID-19 and its lockdown measures hit her community and shut down her school.
Melissa’s family doesn’t have an internet connection at their home in Umguza, Zimbabwe, so she tried to keep up with radio lessons and by reading her textbooks – but it wasn’t the same. And when her father’s shoe repair business came to an abrupt halt because of the lockdown Melissa had to completely stop her studies so she could help her family survive.
“We were not getting enough food at all. We had to adjust our eating habits. We now had to budget for everything,” Melissa explains about her family’s situation during the lockdown. “I started gathering firewood, preparing the garden and I had to go sell things at the mines.”
Informal gold mining is common where Melissa lives, and although selling small items to miners provides a much-needed income source for struggling families, adolescent girls and young women who do this work face grave dangers.
“It was difficult because at times they [the miners] would just take the stuff without paying. Sometimes it happened that they sexually abused girls that would go sell with me,” says Melissa.
She also says that in addition to the violence girls faced at the mines, her town became a more dangerous place to live during the lockdown.
“People were getting hungry and the lockdown caused people to break in to people's houses and beat them up at night and steal money and also rape women,” says Melissa.
In addition to the millions of lives lost due to COVID-19, the knock-on impacts of the pandemic have been devastating. The World Bank estimates that globally this year the pandemic could push between 88 and 115 million people into extreme poverty.
Other infectious diseases, including HIV, could come raging back. Due to disruptions in lifesaving HIV services and distribution of key health and prevention supplies and diversion of health resources to COVID-19, UNAIDS and WHO project that deaths from HIV in sub-Saharan Africa alone could double in 12 months – reversing more than a decade of progress.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic adolescent girls in the region were particularly vulnerable to HIV, accounting for more than 25% of infections, despite making up only 10% of the population. They are more than twice as likely to acquire HIV than their male peers.
The global pandemic is expected to put girls in lower income countries even further at risk. Out of school, these girls are more likely to face gender-based violence, unplanned pregnancy, forced marriage, and HIV or other sexually transmitted infections. Studies show that a better-educated girl is less likely to get HIV, and more likely to have control over her body and make her own informed decisions about when or if she will marry or have children.
It is estimated that more than 5 million girls globally are at risk of not returning to school in 2020 after leaving due to COVID-19 closures.
A recent assessment by the National Aids Council of Zimbabwe also showed that adolescent girls have less access to cell phones and the Internet than their male peers, further limiting their access to online learning, prevention services, or sexual and reproductive health education during lockdowns or transport stoppages.
Across sub-Saharan Africa, the Global Fund and partners invest in programs to reduce HIV among girls through a comprehensive package of services, including by helping girls stay in school and through empowerment groups like ‘Sista2Sista’ in Zimbabwe. This work also includes scaling up prevention, education and treatment services; ensuring women have access to economic empowerment programs and meaningful engagement opportunities; and preventing gender-based violence.
In Zimbabwe this work is in partnership with UNDP, the National AIDS Council of Zimbabwe, Plan International and the Zimbabwe Association of Church Related Hospitals.
For example, while at school Melissa and her classmates have participated in the Modified DREAMS program, (Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe) which is funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The program provides students with support to stay in school and access to education and empowerment programs. In the community, One Stop Centres provide comprehensive care to survivors of gender-based violence, offering medical, legal and psychosocial services.
For six months, these services were shut down due to COVID-19 lockdown measures. Although precise data is not yet available on how COVID-19 has affected teen pregnancy so far, a recent report by the nongovernmental organization World Vision estimates that school closures during crises can lead to increases in teen pregnancy by as much as 65 per cent.
After being out of school for six months, Melissa returned this past September and is no longer selling items at the local mines. She says that regardless of COVID-19 her dream is to stay in school and have a successful future.
“Once I finish school, I want to become an accountant or a lawyer. If that doesn't work out, I will just follow the wind wherever it blows me. I will try my best.”
Learn more about how Global Fund investments support women and girls and fight gender inequality.
© 2026 The Global Fund
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