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[milica 04]

link
http://globalwire.bl...-in-uganda.html
itd

U.S. officials describe their strategy in Uganda as “ABC”—a popular acronym standing for “Abstinence, Be Faithful, use Condoms.” Some experts credit the “ABC” strategy with helping to reduce HIV prevalence in Uganda from about 15% in the early 1990s, to less than 10% today. However, Human Rights Watch’s new report documents how condoms are left out of the equation, especially for young people.

A draft “Abstinence and Being Faithful (AB)” policy released in November 2004 by the Uganda AIDS Commission cautions that providing information about condoms alongside abstinence can be “confusing” to youth. Teachers told Human Rights Watch that they have been instructed by U.S. contractors not to discuss condoms in schools because the new policy is “abstinence only.” President Museveni has publicly condemned condoms as inappropriate for Ugandans, leading some AIDS educators to stop talking about them.

Ukratko, Uganda je jedinstvena zemlja koja je uspela da smanji procenat ljudi inficiranih HIVom sa oko 15% na oko 5%. Medutim, u poslednje vreme US iskljucivo finansira tzv abstinence only programe, u kojima je uloga kondoma u prevenciji HIVa ovako objasnjena:

Draft secondary-school materials state falsely that latex condoms have microscopic pores that can be permeated by HIV, and that pre-marital sex is a form of “deviance.” HIV/AIDS rallies sponsored by the U.S. government spread similar falsehoods.

Posledica ovoga je i da sada direktno od str USA placena vlada Ugade ogranicava uvoz kondoma i unistava posiljke istih pod izgovorom da su neispravni. Zanima me koje je vase misljenje zasto USA vlada (Bush) insistiraju na ovom programu, da li je u pitaju "licni trip" verskih fanatika iz USA koji su ovde nasli poligon kad vec kod kuce ne mogu nista da urade ili je nesto dr u pitanju? Posto sam ja upravo naisla na ovo na internetu (nikad pre nisam cula za ovaj uzas), takode molim bolje informisane forumase za zanimljive linkove i informacije (Topik ne treba da bude na forumu Zdravlje jer je u pitanju cist politika-drustvo aspekt teme).

Uganda gained a reputation in the 1990s for its high-level leadership against HIV/AIDS and acceptance of sexually candid HIV-prevention messages. But public health experts and Ugandan AIDS organizations fear that the shift toward abstinence-only programs will reverse this success. Abstinence programs have been used since 1981 in the United States, where they have proven in numerous independent studies to be ineffective and potentially harmful.

[milica 04]

Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/r...tm#_Toc98378370

Findings on Abstinence Education in Uganda
We were told not to show [pupils] how to use condoms and not to talk about them at our school. In the past, we used to show them to our upper primary classes. Now we can’t do that.
—A primary school teacher in Kasese
In our assemblies and in the classroom, we explain what abstinence is and why it is important . . . . But around here, people don’t buy this idea of abstinence because in Uganda, many girls are using sex to buy their daily bread.
—A headteacher in Mbale

Uganda stands out among African countries for its high-profile embrace of U.S.-funded abstinence-until-marriage programs. The country’s early success in bringing down rates of HIV prevalence, combined with its growing fundamentalist Christian population, has attracted the interest of U.S. policymakers eager to demonstrate the success of abstinence-only programs. Support for abstinence-only approaches has extended to powerful figures in Uganda, most notably First Lady Janet Museveni, and can increasingly be found at the level of schools and service providers. In what is widely viewed as a departure from his previous positions, President Museveni has publicly supported abstinence-only approaches and, before large international audiences, denigrated condoms as a means of HIV prevention. All of this has occurred in the context of a growing condom shortage in Uganda, prompting some government officials to urge sexual abstinence to stave off a spike in HIV transmission.

Problem sa Ugandom i abstinence programima je sto jako mlade devojcice moraju da se bave i prostitucijom da bi zaradile za hranu. Ovi programi nisu uspeli ni u USA, ali u Ugandi nacinjena steta je veca kad se uzme u obzir beda koja primorava narocito devojcice da stupe u rane seksualne odnose. Zanimljivo je da je u mladoj populaciji 36% zena zarazeno virusom HIVa naspram oko 10% muskaraca (poredenja radi mislim da je u USA oko 18% zarazenih HIVom zenskog pola.

Edited by milica 04, 25 March 2008 - 22:35.

[milica 04]

Eo malo i sta Busov tim kaze o programu (prvo, Human Rights Watch lazu, drugo, smanjenje "casual sex-a" je kljucno za prevenciju HIVa)

Uganda is redirecting its HIV prevention strategy for young people away from scientifically proven and effective strategies, towards ideologically driven US programmes that focus primarily on promoting sexual abstinence until marriage, according to a Human Rights Watch report.

The 80-page report, The less they know, the better: abstinence-only HIV/AIDS programs in Uganda, documents the recent removal of critical HIV/AIDS information from primary school curricula, including information about condoms, safer sex, and the risks of HIV in marriage. Draft secondary school materials state falsely that latex condoms have microscopic pores that can be permeated by HIV, and that premarital sex is a form of “deviance”. HIV/AIDS rallies sponsored by the US government spread similar falsehoods. “These abstinence-only programmes leave Uganda's children at risk of HIV”, said Jonathan Cohen, one of the report's authors. “Abstinence messages should complement other HIV-prevention strategies, not undermine them.”

A draft Abstinence and being faithful (AB) policy released in November 2004 by the Uganda AIDS Commission cautions that providing information about condoms alongside abstinence can be “confusing” to young people. Teachers told Human Rights Watch that they have been instructed by US contractors not to discuss condoms in schools because the new policy is “abstinence only”. President Museveni has even publicly condemned condoms as inappropriate for Ugandans, leading some AIDS educators to stop talking about them. The report claims that condoms will gradually disappear from the country's HIV/AIDS strategy.

Uganda is one of the most inspiring examples of an effective national response, having successfully reduced its national adult prevalence rate from a peak of 13% in 1992 to 4% today. Many US experts credit the success to the “ABC” prevention approach—abstinence, be faithful, and condoms.

Justin Parkhurst (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK) told TLID that, “if half of what this report documents is true, then this is indeed a very worrying situation. I am particularly concerned with the reported restriction on what is considered acceptable in terms of HIV prevention activities in Uganda. The promotion of one generalised message of ‘AB’ is also very worrying, because my own research in Uganda's success, undertaken in 1999–2000, concluded that the success was primarily due to a very wide diversity of approaches on the ground, and could never be achieved by any single broad brush approach”.

But Edward Green, a member of George Bush's Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS argues that the findings of the report are just not true. Green insists that, “the trend in recent years has been away from abstinence and being faithful. Why? Because the major donors have never supported this and they are not comfortable with the A and B of ABC”. Green adds that Ugandan programmes have gone with what the donors favour, which is risk reduction (condoms, treating sexually transmitted infections, and testing). “The word ‘abstinence’ appears only twice in the body of the report, but only as being part of a general approach—there are no specific objectives or impact measures associated with A or B interventions”, he adds.

Green states that objective researchers have published analyses in the last 12–26 months, and they all conclude that decline in casual sex (the B of ABC) was the single most important behavioural change. It was neither condoms nor abstinence per se. “Addressing sexual behaviour has been lost in the debate. Today it's condoms only versus abstinence only. Let's not perpetuate this risk reduction only mistake, especially in a generalised epidemic such as Uganda”.