Harare, Zimbabwe - Members of a popular church sect in Zimbabwe have agreed to change their marriage practices radically to stem the spread of Aids. The Apostolic Faith sect has more than 3-million followers in Zimbabwe, representing one-quarter of the population. Practices such as polygamy, wife inheritance and early marriages - common in some of the sect's churches - have been blamed for fuelling the spread of HIV and Aids. But Apostolic Faith leaders attending a workshop in Harare have now decided to discourage the practices, the privately owned Standard newspaper reported yesterday. "We are now preaching to our members one man, one wife, discouraging early marriages for girls and discouraging wife inheritance," Bishop Revai Chitanda, head of the Union for the Development of Apostolic Churches in Zimbabwe, told the newspaper. "We all know how these practices are drawing us back in the fight against HIV and Aids," Chitanda said. Zimbabwe has one of the highest HIV rates in sub-Saharan Africa and the world. One of the practices for which some followers of the Apostolic Faith have been criticised is that of kuzvarira, which involves marrying off young girls - sometimes as infants - to much older men.