Girls in Zambia are five times more likely to be infected with the HIV virus than their male counterparts due to widespread sexual abuse, a human rights organisation has reported. New York-based Human Rights Watch described in its report - entitled Suffering in Silence - how young girls who suffer abuse often experience it whilst in the hands of an elder or a guardian who is supposed to protect them. It says girls are also often raped on long walks to school, or abused by teachers. Others, orphaned as a result of Zambia's high rate of HIV infection, are forced to become prostitutes or to form sexual relationships with much older men.

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