Thursday, July 21, 2005
Free tuition........
for virgins.
Sulaiman Madada, a Ugandan MP, is raising funds to send virgins to university for free. He wants to encourage schoolgirls to be morally upright and avoid early marriages. "We do not want these girls to get exposed to Aids," he told the Associated Press. Uganda is often held up as a model of how to fight HIV/Aids. Men, need not apply.
Don't worry there is a merit criteria for the award. Only girls in Kayunga district who pass a virginity test will qualify for the bursary, which will start next year.
Kayunga, in central Uganda, has one of the highest HIV/Aids infection rates in the country. Although the infection rates have fallen in recent years from 15% to 5% critics say this could now rise because the government is promoting abstinence, rather than safe sex. The call for abstinence in fighting HIV/Aids is backed by religious groups and Uganda's first lady Janet Museveni, who supports a campaign for young Ugandans to pledge abstinence until marriage.
This issue of sexual activity amongst youth in African nations is one of the biggest challenges facing the continent. It is also one that I have been reading many articles about lately and have been saving to write about this particular subject. There are conflicting strategies emerging on how to deal with this matter and the White House even has a few suggestions.
First, some interesting statistics. According to a recent (2002) comprehensive survey by the Community Information, Empowerment and Transparency (CIET Africa), one out of every three children is having sex at the age of 10, and 17% will deliberately spread the virus if they know they are HIV-positive.
The study involved 269 905 pupils in Grades 6 to 11 in all language groups, across a range of schools and from all nine provinces.
Some of the other disturbing findings included that, at 18, two out of every three children had had sex. Two out of 10 pupils did not believe condoms prevented pregnancy or other sexually transmitted diseases. One in 10 said they believed sex with a virgin could cure HIV/Aids, and one in 10 had been raped in the past year. Three out of every 100 pupils thought that girls liked sexually violent boys and one out of every 10 thought that girls who got raped, asked for it, according to the study.
The study further stated people were becoming sexually active earlier and belief systems about sex supported sexually violent and sexually irresponsible behaviour.
Laura Bush, who was recently in Africa on a three-nation African trip that aims to highlight the Bush administration's battle against AIDS on the world's poorest continent, got to witness first hand the deep impact of AIDS in some of these communities. Bush was apparently moved to tears at one of her stops by the compelling stories of some of the locals. Good thing Senator and Doctor Bill Frist wasn't there. He would have had to do a bubble boy impersonation - no sweat or tears near him.
Mrs. Bush was at the Khayelitsha Maternity Obstetrics Unit to showcase work done there through the Mothers' Programmes, a private organization that receives some assistance through President Bush's five-year, $15 billion anti-AIDS effort.
The program the first lady visited enlists mothers who have kept from transmitting the disease to their own children to mentor new expectant mothers. A great challenge in the battle against AIDS in Africa is persuading the many people who are leery of talking about the disease to get tested and to take steps to prevent its spread.
George Bush is wise to send his wife over to Africa to witness the problems first hand since his proposed aid to Africa is likely to make the situation worse not better.
The Bush plan calls for an ABC approach to HIV prevention - this stands for abstinence, be faithful and condom use. The administration is heavily stressing the "A."
The majority of funding that was transferred in the first year actually went to only programs that promoted abstinence. This despite a growing body of literature that shows such programs actually increase the risk of sexually transmitted disease by discouraging contraceptive use. What is even more insulting is this method completely ignores one of the paramount problems facing young women in Africa and other impoverished regions, which are often infected by wandering husbands or forced to have sex in exchange for food and shelter.
It is not surprising that the Bush motives are being driven by social conservatives, who have made spreading the gospel of abstinence and monogamy to Africans their primary mission. According to Focus on the Family (yes, this is the same group who have at least 5 Conservative nominations locked up in both BC and Nova Scotia), when you give a teenager a condom, it gives them a license to go have sex."
Some Republicans, including Henry Hyde, have gone so far as to threaten funding to improvised nations that actually promote condoms. They often state that the best and only defense for preventing HIV transmission is by practicing abstinence and being faithful to a non-infected partner. Apparently, if you have an infected partner, screw everyone, it matters not.
You are wondering, how and the hell does this tie into free tuition? Well, Uganda is actually the country where the Republicans have been the most aggressive, The country, under intense pressure for the Bush Administration, has banned the promotion and distribution of condoms in schools. In fact, the government has engineered a nation wide shortage of condoms by issuing a recall on all state-supplied condoms and ceasing international condoms at the airports.
As a result of these actions, the administration is providing an additional $10 M US to the country. The US Ambassador, Bush's global AIDS czar, summed it up in a memo to countries in January. Groups that receive US funding should not target youth with messages that present abstinence and condoms are equally viable, alternative choices.
Public health experts (those evil left leaning people) are warning the administration that this diversion of funds away from tried and true HIV prevention methods is more than a misguided experiment -it’s a game of Russian roulette that could actually make the situation much, much worse in these nations. In fact, this has to be the crassest form of social engineering attempted. Aid should not have religious strings attached, period. How about more science and less religion.
Sulaiman Madada, a Ugandan MP, is raising funds to send virgins to university for free. He wants to encourage schoolgirls to be morally upright and avoid early marriages. "We do not want these girls to get exposed to Aids," he told the Associated Press. Uganda is often held up as a model of how to fight HIV/Aids. Men, need not apply.
Don't worry there is a merit criteria for the award. Only girls in Kayunga district who pass a virginity test will qualify for the bursary, which will start next year.
Kayunga, in central Uganda, has one of the highest HIV/Aids infection rates in the country. Although the infection rates have fallen in recent years from 15% to 5% critics say this could now rise because the government is promoting abstinence, rather than safe sex. The call for abstinence in fighting HIV/Aids is backed by religious groups and Uganda's first lady Janet Museveni, who supports a campaign for young Ugandans to pledge abstinence until marriage.
This issue of sexual activity amongst youth in African nations is one of the biggest challenges facing the continent. It is also one that I have been reading many articles about lately and have been saving to write about this particular subject. There are conflicting strategies emerging on how to deal with this matter and the White House even has a few suggestions.
First, some interesting statistics. According to a recent (2002) comprehensive survey by the Community Information, Empowerment and Transparency (CIET Africa), one out of every three children is having sex at the age of 10, and 17% will deliberately spread the virus if they know they are HIV-positive.
The study involved 269 905 pupils in Grades 6 to 11 in all language groups, across a range of schools and from all nine provinces.
Some of the other disturbing findings included that, at 18, two out of every three children had had sex. Two out of 10 pupils did not believe condoms prevented pregnancy or other sexually transmitted diseases. One in 10 said they believed sex with a virgin could cure HIV/Aids, and one in 10 had been raped in the past year. Three out of every 100 pupils thought that girls liked sexually violent boys and one out of every 10 thought that girls who got raped, asked for it, according to the study.
The study further stated people were becoming sexually active earlier and belief systems about sex supported sexually violent and sexually irresponsible behaviour.
Laura Bush, who was recently in Africa on a three-nation African trip that aims to highlight the Bush administration's battle against AIDS on the world's poorest continent, got to witness first hand the deep impact of AIDS in some of these communities. Bush was apparently moved to tears at one of her stops by the compelling stories of some of the locals. Good thing Senator and Doctor Bill Frist wasn't there. He would have had to do a bubble boy impersonation - no sweat or tears near him.
Mrs. Bush was at the Khayelitsha Maternity Obstetrics Unit to showcase work done there through the Mothers' Programmes, a private organization that receives some assistance through President Bush's five-year, $15 billion anti-AIDS effort.
The program the first lady visited enlists mothers who have kept from transmitting the disease to their own children to mentor new expectant mothers. A great challenge in the battle against AIDS in Africa is persuading the many people who are leery of talking about the disease to get tested and to take steps to prevent its spread.
George Bush is wise to send his wife over to Africa to witness the problems first hand since his proposed aid to Africa is likely to make the situation worse not better.
The Bush plan calls for an ABC approach to HIV prevention - this stands for abstinence, be faithful and condom use. The administration is heavily stressing the "A."
The majority of funding that was transferred in the first year actually went to only programs that promoted abstinence. This despite a growing body of literature that shows such programs actually increase the risk of sexually transmitted disease by discouraging contraceptive use. What is even more insulting is this method completely ignores one of the paramount problems facing young women in Africa and other impoverished regions, which are often infected by wandering husbands or forced to have sex in exchange for food and shelter.
It is not surprising that the Bush motives are being driven by social conservatives, who have made spreading the gospel of abstinence and monogamy to Africans their primary mission. According to Focus on the Family (yes, this is the same group who have at least 5 Conservative nominations locked up in both BC and Nova Scotia), when you give a teenager a condom, it gives them a license to go have sex."
Some Republicans, including Henry Hyde, have gone so far as to threaten funding to improvised nations that actually promote condoms. They often state that the best and only defense for preventing HIV transmission is by practicing abstinence and being faithful to a non-infected partner. Apparently, if you have an infected partner, screw everyone, it matters not.
You are wondering, how and the hell does this tie into free tuition? Well, Uganda is actually the country where the Republicans have been the most aggressive, The country, under intense pressure for the Bush Administration, has banned the promotion and distribution of condoms in schools. In fact, the government has engineered a nation wide shortage of condoms by issuing a recall on all state-supplied condoms and ceasing international condoms at the airports.
As a result of these actions, the administration is providing an additional $10 M US to the country. The US Ambassador, Bush's global AIDS czar, summed it up in a memo to countries in January. Groups that receive US funding should not target youth with messages that present abstinence and condoms are equally viable, alternative choices.
Public health experts (those evil left leaning people) are warning the administration that this diversion of funds away from tried and true HIV prevention methods is more than a misguided experiment -it’s a game of Russian roulette that could actually make the situation much, much worse in these nations. In fact, this has to be the crassest form of social engineering attempted. Aid should not have religious strings attached, period. How about more science and less religion.
# posted by Shaky @ 8:49 a.m. 
