The "girl effect"

Adolescent girls play an important role in influencing adolescent boys’ decisions about getting circumcised, new research suggests. An article on the HIV website Avert summarises the findings of a study among 90 adolescent girls living near health facilities offering voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) and 90 adolescent boys who had been circumcised in South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. The study, which was published in a special supplement to the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, found that the girls preferred their male partners to be circumcised for a number of reasons, including VMMC’s protective effect against HIV and a belief that having a circumcised penis makes a man more attractive. The adolescent boys suggested that encouragement from girls with whom they were romantically involved was one of the factors that motivated them to become circumcised. The results of this small, qualitative study may not apply beyond the participants, but they suggest that VMMC programmes should consider the influence of adolescent girls on adolescent boys’ decisions about VMMC (Avert, 17 April 2018).