[Dialogue] A plan for HIV/AIDS?

[Harry Wainwright]

Laura and George's Bait and Switch Game

By Jodi Lynn Jacobson <http://www.alternet.org/authors/7437/> , AlterNet
<http://www.alternet.org> . Posted September 26, 2005
<http://www.alternet.org/ts/archives/?date%5BF%5D=09&date%5BY%5D=2005&date%5
Bd%5D=26&act=Go/> .

While Laura Bush talks in glowing terms about her husband's plan for AIDS
relief, the devastating reality of the president's HIV/AIDS initiative is
being felt throughout sub-Saharan Africa.  

On September 15, Laura Bush spoke to the Organization of African First
Ladies Against HIV/AIDS while her husband and theirs were attending the
United Nations World Summit. Her speech underscored why this administration
is always caught off-guard by reality: It was filled with admirable words
used to deflect attention from the administration's short-sighted approach
to critical global issues, and to obscure the ideological blinders used by
the administration to screen out inconvenient facts about the way real
people actually live their lives. It is a dangerous game of bait and switch
that results in devastating consequences when reality strikes, as
underscored by recent events in both Iraq and New Orleans. 

For example, while Laura Bush was making repeated references to the beauties
of global partnership, George Bush was presiding over unilateral U.S.
opposition to effective multilateral efforts to combat poverty and global
warming and increase international assistance. 

And while Mrs. Bush talked in glowing terms about the President's Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the realities of his HIV/AIDS initiative were
being felt in capitals throughout sub-Saharan Africa. 

PEPFAR has become one huge kickback to the fundamentalist religious groups
that helped put Bush in office. Today, women and girls represent 60 percent
of those infected in sub-Saharan Africa, and new infections are rising
fastest among married women ages 18 to 35. Yet PEPFAR is pouring huge sums
of money into questionable "faith-based" groups with no proven track record
in public health, as long as they agree to promote the Administration's
"abstinence-only" ideology.

At a meeting in Africa this weekend, one official from Nigeria told me that
in his country, new "faith-based" groups are popping up all over, and have
only to "hang out a cross and a shingle" to get PEPFAR money. Funding bogus
groups will not reduce the social and individual burden presented by the 5
million infections contracted worldwide each year, the majority of them in
sub-Saharan Africa. 

In her speech, Mrs. Bush stated, "Education, especially for girls, is an
important part of our campaign to increase understanding of how HIV can be
prevented [reinforcing] the importance of taking responsibility for their
own lives." In reality, this Administration seems bent on keeping women and
adolescents ignorant of their choices. 

In Uganda, where 66 percent of those ages 15 to 24 are sexually active,
PEPFAR is spending 56 percent of funding for prevention of HIV on
abstinence-only programs that prohibit the dissemination of condom
information and supplies to this age group. The remaining funds can be used
only to provide condoms to sex workers, truckers and people in bars, despite
the rapid spread of HIV among women and older adolescents.

U.S. funding is filling the coffers of Uganda's First Lady Janet Museveni,
whose idea of "increasing understanding of how HIV can be prevented" is to
tell students that condoms spread disease and to parade "virgins" through
the streets of Kampala. Colleagues in Nigeria, Kenya and Zambia tell me that
restrictions in U.S. policy are crippling effective condom procurement and
distribution programs that reach a broad audience with information on the
importance of correct and consistent condom use. 

Mrs. Bush also stated, "Women who have control over their own lives --
including economic power and social respect -- have a greater ability to
protect themselves against HIV." 

How true. But critical to exerting control over one's life is the ability to
decide the number and spacing of children and the development of the skills
and information necessary to practice safer sex. Yet on the very day Mrs.
Bush spoke, her husband decided for the fourth consecutive year to withhold
$34 million from UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, which provides
reproductive health and HIV prevention services to poor women in 140
countries. And while family planning clinics are the "first responders" on
HIV prevention for women and girls throughout sub-Saharan Africa, PEPFAR
funding is being denied to family planning groups in Kenya and Uganda on the
basis of ideological differences. 

"By partnering with African governments and the African people, the United
States is playing a key role in bringing an end to the tragedy of HIV/AIDS,"
Mrs. Bush concluded. 

This could not be further from the truth: The U.S. stands in opposition to
proven efforts to reduce HIV infections among women and girls and provide
them with the tools needed to plan their families. Both Mrs. Bush and her
husband are completely out of touch with reality, a fact that will result in
devastating consequences for African women for years to come. 

Jodi L. Jacobson is founder and executive director of the Center for Health
and Gender Equity (CHANGE) which monitors and advocates for changes in US
global policy and funding for HIV/AIDS and family planning in Africa, Asia,
and Latin America.  

 

 

Peace,

Harry

 

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