Just read an interesting news piece on abstinence sex education and pledges in the US. It noted that 88 percent of pledge takers had sex before marriage and that were less likely to seek STI testing and less likely to use contraception when they did have sex. You can read more about it here.
I found some really interesting short films from a film festival focusing on HIV/AIDS. Take a look at them here
I saw yesterday “The First Female Condom in India” on sale in a local shop. Don’t know much about them but hopefuly this is a step forward for the empowerment of some women in India.
TB is the biggest killer of women of child bearing age in India. This is above malaria, and all maternal causes of death combined.
There is a story here about a place in India where they have begun delivering condoms with the daily newspaper delivery. What a great idea, I love it. A good stigma free way to get condoms out there. I mean just imagine if most houses had a small pile of condoms stockpilled from the daily delivery, how much more likely that would make people to actually use them. They probably need some education with it, but I am sure that it is looked after by the group organising this.
Recently in India a teenager killed himself by setting himself alight. Both his parents had HIV/AIDS and it appears the stigma related to the humilation of having HIV positive parents. Pretty devasting. Just goes to show how important work on fighting stigma and descrimination is. You can read more here at BBC News or here.
Apparently world leaders are hesitant to put the word condom in their AIDS declaration. Other scary terms that they are trying to avoid are men who have sex with men (or homosexuals), people who inject drugs (or drug users) and people who sell sex (or prostitutes). Other scary concepts include empowering women, and of course money in the form of patents and clear financial commitments. For some reason in the news coverage prisoners the 4 identified at risk group was not mentioned.
The Bush administration, heavily influence by the Christian right, is blocking key proposals for a new United Nations package to combat HIV/Aids worldwide over the next five years because of its opposition to the distribution of condoms and needle exchanges and references to prostitutes, drug addicts and homosexuals.
The United States is being supported by many Muslim countries, including Egypt, and various conservative African and Latin American nations. “There are a lot of unholy alliances all over the place,” said a European official attending UN talks in New York on Thursday night.
It upsets me that Christians can be so bloody STUPID.
Why can’t we acknowledge that people have SEX, and some people have it out of marriage.
Condoms help protect people who have sex outside of marriage and they also protect people with unfaithful partners.
People have been selling sex for centuaries and probably a lot longer! I can see no reason why we can’t have this in a declaration.
Men have been having sex with men for a long time too! What’s the big deal.
I don’t have any idea why injecting drug users are taboo. If you have an idea please leave it as a comment.
I guess the main objection might be distributing needles makes it seem like it’s OK to do drugs. But surely everyone knows, “Drugs are bad, mmmK.”
Anyway I really don’t understand this attituted. I guess the thinking might be this if you give me a condom I’ll go out and have sex.
Newsflash
I have been given condoms before and I didn’t end up having sex. My medical kit for India also contains condoms and it hasn’t made me go out and have sex.
I also brought clean needles with me to India and I haven’t gone out and brought myself some drugs to inject.
I have heard that men have sex with men, and I have meet men who have sex with men, but somehow I have managed to not be tempted into having sex with a man.
Oh and I have heard that I can exchange money for sex and that hasn’t made me go and hire a sex worker.
My argument is not that I am a saint, my argument is that education and giving people access to the commodities they need to live out their lifestyle choices more safely is not going to make people any less moral.
I think that we need to embrace harm minisation and education, they save lives. The UNAIDS report shows this clearly.
There are some interesting articles on the forming of the draft declaration:
BBC News
African News Dimension
Reuters
US ABC News
So how do we get around these issues:
Well taking a look at the final decleration it seems negotiation was the key.
With enough pressure they managed to get condoms in their AIDS declaration, and a few references to sterile injecting equipment and a reference to harm minimisation. Empowering women actually made it’s way into the declaration, upsetting some of the countries who seem to want poor uneducated girls to be married without being empowered to look after their own sexual health. Money does get mentioned, but not patents.
The big loss though is the vulnerable groups, it seems that men who have sex with men, people who sell sex, people who inject drugs and prisoners.
Despite this the declaration does actually mention that HIV is got through risky and unsafe sexual behaviour and injecting drug use. It commits the countries to working towards prevention and sets a slightly clearer path towards universal treatment for 2010. If we can manage that then maybe just maybe the Millennium Development Goals are still in reach.
In the 25 years since HIV/AIDS was discovered 25 million has died. Real progress is being made with the use of condoms as reported in The Australian.
However there is much more in the full report at UN AIDS.
From the executive summary:
There is a lot more in this report, but I don’t have the energy to go through it all now. The four most at risk groups are sex workers, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users and prisoners. I think this says a lot about our world. Yes these people engage in risky activities but if we really loved them there are so many things we could do to help them reduce their risks. I have the honour of knowing people who are working with some of these groups.
I think that if anyone is into letter writting there could be some fun letters to politicians out of some of this stuff. Perhaps we could give all the MPs condoms.
-UPDATE-
I can’t believe I forgot to mention Mother-Child infection. With the right drugs the risk of mother to child infection of HIV can be dramatically reduced. Sadly there is no where near enough being done in this area, with only 9% of mothers getting access to the required services well under the target of 80%.
I also forgot the Millenium Development Goals.
The goal of halting and begining to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS which is part of the 6th MDG and other agreements is still far off.