The strikingly higher infection rates among adolescent girls compared to boys in Zambia and many other parts of Africa reveal a disturbing trend: the AIDS epidemic is being fueled by the abuse and subordination of young women. Sexual violence and coercion of girls is widespread, often fuelled by intergenerational sex when men choose younger and younger girls because they are assumed to be HIV-negative. The increasing number of orphans created by the AIDS epidemic is contributing to the crisis.