Thursday 9 August 2007

No room for sexual morality in an honest conversation about Aids

(Ed: Not sure this article at all proves the point made in the headline!)

[...]
In 1992, foreign donors phased out Uganda's zero grazing campaign and replaced it with a programme emphasising condom use for "people at high risk" similar to those in the rest of the region. But a few years ago, officials began to worry because although the HIV infection rate had fallen rapidly in the 1990s, the decline had ceased by the end of the decade. But instead of reviving the zero grazing campaign, the officials, with support from the Bush administration, mounted an "abstinence" campaign, which ironically sent a message very similar to the condom ads: only immoral people get Aids. To everyone's horror, the HIV rate in Uganda is beginning to rise again.

People always ask me: "So, fighting Aids requires a social movement. How do you generate a social movement?" Well, one thing that always galvanises people is a common enemy. Too many donor funded Aids programmes have divided people: HIV-positive from HIV-negative, "moral" from "immoral", high-risk from low-risk. Such programmes send the message that the enemy is people with Aids. Ugandans and gay men knew early that the enemy was HIV itself.

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