has grappled with high rates of HIV prevalence since the late 1980s.26 As the epidemic has continued, the practice of wife inheritance has decreased.27 While it is a positive development that widows are less often forced to marry an in-law, some in-laws still feel entitled to the property of the deceased, and property grabbing continues. Another harmful practice that compounds the vulnerability of many widows is child marriage, which is common in Zimbabwe, with approximately one in three girls marrying before their 18th birthday.28 Child marriage engenders life-long problems: many girls do not continue school; early pregnancies can strip them of opportunities and may lead to poor health throughout life; and they are at increased risk of violence within their marriage.29 The payment of lobola may contribute to this persistent practice, as it motivates parents to marry off their daughters at an early age. Child marriage can make a woman who was married as a child even more vulnerable when she becomes a widow, including because child marriages are rarely registered. The Zimbabwe Constitutional Court ruled in 2016 that child marriage is unconstitutional, but the government has done little to end the practice.30 Finally, polygamy remains common in Zimbabwe, creating additional complications and risks for widows. A 2010-2011 demographic and health survey found that 7.1 percent of urban women and 13.4 percent of rural women between the ages of 15 and 49 years knew they were in polygynous marriages in Zimbabwe.31 Not all women know that they are in 26 Kerina Duri, Babill Stray-Pedersen, and F. Muller, “HIV/AIDS: The Zimbabwean Situation and Trends,” American Journal of Clinical Medicine Research, vol. 1, no. 1, (2013), pp. 15-22. 27 SAFAIDS, “Changing the River’s Flow Series: Zimbabwean stories of ‘Best Practice’ in mitigating the HIV crisis through a cultural and gender perspective, challenging gender dynamics in a cultural context to address HIV,” March 2009, http://www.safaids.net/files/Changing%20river%20Best%20Practice.pdf (accessed August 12th, 2016); Muchini, B., et al., “Local Perceptions of the Forms, Timing, and Causes of Behavior Change in Response to the AIDS Epidemic in Zimbabwe,” AIDS Behavior, vol. 15:2 (2011) pp. 487-498. 28 See, “Zimbabwe,” Girls Not Brides, http://www.girlsnotbrides.org/child-marriage/zimbabwe/ (accessed January 11, 2017). 29 Anastasia J. Gage, David Hotchkiss, and Deepali Godha, “Association between Child Marriage and Intimate Partner Violence in Four African Countries” (poster session presented at XXVII International Population Conference, Busan, Korea, August 26–31, 2013), http://iussp.org/sites/default/files/event_call_for_papers/Gage%20Child%20Marriage% 20and%20Intimate%20Partner%2 0Violence%20%20Long%20Abstract%20Revised.pdf; Measure DHS+ ; “Profiling Domestic Violence – A Multi-Country Study,” June 2004, http://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/od31/od31.pdf (accessed August 12, 2016), p. 30. 30 Ellie Kaufman, “Zimbabwe court bans child marriage after challenge by young brides,” Women in The World, February 2, 2016, http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2016/02/02/zimbabwe-court-bans-child-marriage-after-challenge-byformer-brides/ (accessed July, 12, 2016). 31 Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency and ICF International, “Demographic and Health Survey for Zimbabwe 2010-2011.” “YOU WILL GET NOTHING” 16