True Love Waits - The Pope's African Condom Problem
Posted: Tuesday, March 17, 2009
by Yangki Christine Akiteng
The Real People's Love Doctor
Tuesday March, 17, 2009, the pontiff on board the plane headed for a five-day pastoral trip to Africa told reporters;
"The (HIV/AIDS) problem cannot be overcome by distributing condoms. It only increases the problem."
It's been only a few hours since the Pope talked to reporters and I already have so many forward emails from people from all walks of life and from all over the world. Some say the media has distorted the pontiff's words, and other's are outraged that the Pope had the audacity to say something like that.
I wrote a few weeks ago about Africa's resistance to condom use. Because sex and sexual behaviors touch on matters deeply personal and closely linked to specific moralities, values, and religious beliefs, many Africans protesting the use of condoms believe that condoms contribute to the breaking down of self-control and mutual trust.
This concern is well voiced in the words of Kenyan HIV activist Dorothy Kwenze who once said,
"Abstinence education remains the best strategy, especially for the risk group aged 15-25 years. The concept has worked well for Uganda and can work for other African countries".Uganda government's message of self responsibility, "True Love Waits" for the unmarried and "Zero Grazing" for the married found in many HIV/AIDS awareness and education materials is credited for Uganda's great success in reducing infection rates.
President Yoweri Museveni's 1987 aggressive grassroots country-wide abstinence program embraced by local communities, schools, religious organizations, and even medicine men/women and herbalists is the reason Uganda today boasts of one of the fastest falling HIV prevalence rates in the world (18% to 5-7%.). Many reports --even those from condon advocates -- say Uganda is the only nation in the world that has achieved such success.
But just like the Pope is taking heat for his comments, Uganda's President took a lot of heat for saying he looks at condoms as an improvisation, not a solution.
"Just as we were offered the magic bullet in the early 1940s, we are now being offered the condom for safe sex.... I feel that condoms have a role to play as a means of protection, especially in couples who are HIV-positive, but they cannot become the main means of stemming the tide of AIDS."Although Uganda's model on HIV/AIDS also educated the population on condom use for protection against the virus, President Museveni's message of optimal relationships based on love and trust (the African way) is the "genius" behind Uganda's great success story.
Unfortunately, the Uganda model has not taken off in other parts of Africa because most sub-Saharan African nations have embraced the UN's pro-condoms model over effective abstinence programs.
The rest is public knowledge. The pro-condoms model has failed, and UN's own statistics show it.
We can learn from our past mistakes but first we must acknowledge that mistakes have been made. This is the first step forward that will bring us nearer to the truth, even though we may never know the truth for certain.
The epidemic rages on. The fight for African lives just began all over!
My other Searchwarp article on Africa's resistance to condom use
About the Author: Christine Akiteng is a Cross Cultural Relations Consultant with experience in cross-cultural negotiations, problem-solving, team-building, project design, project management, project evaluation and monitoring. She has held Program Coordination and Program Management positions with diplomatic missions and international aid agencies including the British High Commission, Canadian International Development Agency and UNICEF Canada. She has also worked in Public Relations with European Union funded programme and done consulting work with IMF/World Bank and World Health Organization affiliated initiatives, as well as many Non-Government Organizations in and outside Africa. Christine is also an internationally renowned Dating and Relationships Coach, Motivational Speaker, AIDS Activist and Youth HIV/AIDS Educator. She currently lives in Toronto, Canada.
This Article has been viewed 876 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Hi Christine, thanks for a well-written and informative article. And thanks for writing on a postive note for abstinence. It really does make a difference.BLessings to you! TeresaPlease log in to respond to this comment.Teresa, thank you for the supportive comment. I am so very passionate about fighting this disease to my grave. I am also so very proud of my home country for our success so far.You're so right that abstinence - African or American/Christian version - does make a difference. I posted an article sometime back detailing the African version of “abstinence”. There are some differences and some similarities to the American/Christian version. I find that many Africans who advocate for abstinence also reject American/Christian version…. interesting phenomenon.Please log in to respond to this comment.Hi Christine. That is interesting. I am going to go back through your archives and find it. Sounds like a great read.Have a blessed day! TeresaPlease log in to respond to this comment.More blessings back to you Teresa!!!Please log in to respond to this comment.
A really good and direct article to this tragedy facing Africa. I commmend you for embracing a really difficult topic. The scope is monumental in nature and has limited support and funding. As a project manger by trade I would say the size and scope so significant one would have to sit down for considerable time to comprehend it. I can say this, without the committmnet of the world as a whole, it cannot be solved. Sadly I donot see that until the world finds something more then people that will make them stop and take note. People, plenty of them, around and if we lose a billion or two we will still have plenty. Sad, so sad. Good work.Please log in to respond to this comment.Thank you, Robert. I really appreciate you taking interest in the AIDS situation in Africa.I sadly agree that the scope is monumental in nature and has limited support and funding. But it’s not just the lack of support and funding, it’s the way this epidemic is being handled that’s THE bigger problem. If you read up on Uganda, you’ll find that America spends about 40 times more per capita on AIDS than Uganda spends on all its health care issues. Yet, in the United States, the increase in HIV infection rates comes despite aggressive marketing of condoms and expensive anti-retroviral drugs--the treatment paradigm mostly ignored by Uganda [Shepherd Smith, "Why Uganda?" Institute for Youth Development, April 7, 2003, and Rob Stein, "AIDS Cases in U.S. Increase," The Washington Post, July 29, 2003].You and I discussed this in one of my other articles. The world can throw all the money it can at this monster but without a joint effort between those who have the money and those who have the disease, nothing will change. Condoms is a Western solution, it’s not going to work for Africa- at least not as those advocating for it want to. In Uganda, international organizations even introduced “brown condoms” thinking that the colour might be the problem. They ended up brown balloons and footballs!Please log in to respond to this comment.
Really great informative article. You are so sincere about the changes that are needed. You must get weary at times but what ever you do, don't give up. I too think abstinence is the solution. May God Bless and Keep you in your endeavor.Please log in to respond to this comment.Linda, YES! I do get weary at times!!!..:-). There are many advantages to having one foot in one world (West) and the other in another (Africa) but there are also many frustrations that come with it. Every now and then I get uplifting words like yours, and feed off that energy. I’ve witnessed so much suffering to give up... not now!!!I appreciate the support!Please log in to respond to this comment.
Hi Christine! Good article & very informative...Once I remember, my husband Chiradeep took a print of your article 'I Met Jesus -- And He Didnt Look Right' and took home for me to read. That was a great article. I can't find it, I will ask chiradeep to send me the link, he must be keeping it as favourite.Thanks for giving infos...Please log in to respond to this comment.Hi Asmita, I am glad you found the article informative. I saw “The Candles” and immediately made the connection to the other “The Candles”… :-). The article “I Met Jesus -- And He Didn’t Look Right' is somewhere there in my list of articles. I hope Searchwarp hasn’t deleted it, you just said it yourself it’s a great article… I think so too...:-)Welcome to Searchwarp!!!.Please log in to respond to this comment.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.