08/01/2005
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No condoms, we’re Ugandan. A symptom of a national tendency: for some months the message coming from institutions
against the transmission of sexual diseases has taken a turn towards fidelity
and sexual abstinence. Leaflets have been published with two cranes, the national
symbol, twisted together in a loving pose, with the slogan: “Cranes remain faithful
for all their lives with their partner. Fidelity and abstinence are 100% safe.”
A campaign launched by a society whose benefactor is the wife of the President,
Janet Museveni, who hasn’t hidden her fondness for a caste of adolesents that
take on the practice of safe sex. The first Ugandan citizen that maintains her
admiration of the fundamentalist Christian principles of US President George.
W .Bush, and her non-governmental organisation is now destined to receive a huge
amount of the American funding for Uganda to fight HIV, funding which is distributed
through governmental agencies. The American organisation “Human Rights Watch”
has directly accused the US government of influencing the Ugandan anti AIDS campaign
through the way in which funds are allocated; and therefore having the damaging
effect of putting “the practice of safe sex on a secondary level.” At the last
G8 the United States confirmed their commitment to the fight against HIV in Africa,
giving $100 million dollars funding, of which $8 million dollars is aimed at programmes
of fidelity and abstinence in Uganda. It’s worth remembering that between 1986,
the year of the first “Ugandan Aids Commission”, until 1992 the number of sero-positive
people reached 30% in various parts of the country, with a national average of
18%, recently in Kampala it’s been pointed out by the UN agency UNAIDS, founded
to fight the disease, that Uganda has been one of the success stories of the world.
The last survey revealed that the rate of diffusion of the disease has been reduced
to 6%. An enormous reduction compared to other countries, such as South Africa
where one adult out of four is infected.
Think about studying, not sex! The dramatist, activist and president of local Parliament Madada has therefore
decided to offer young women in his region, who can prove that they are virgins,
payment of their university fees supported by an NGO; they are able to 900 thousand
Ugandan shillings (450 Euro) every quarter. Already Madala is paying this through
his own pocket, funding a local programme for students of senior school, but he
is in economic difficulty, it costs one million shillings, 475 Euro. He’s not
alone in this fight. Protestant Ministers such as Pastor Martin Ssempa has called
for attention to be directed towards abstinence in order to weaken the virus,
he sustains that in the past too much importance was placed on the use of condoms
and it, “has caused a rise in the level of casual sex and infidelity among married
couples.” “Abstinence is without doubt the best opportunity for African people
to win the fight against HIV-maintains Madala- up until now condoms have been
the main focus, but Europeans don’t understand that the use of condoms requires
practice: in order to be informed, our people need to read the instructions. But
you need to remember that in our campaign that a large number of people are ignorant,
and don’t read the instructions, and refuse to use condoms.” Thoughts that are
also widespread in other countries, as was demonstrated by the Kenyan Member of
Parliament Ramadan Kajembe, during a debate on publicity for condoms: “to promote
to Kenyans is useless” “Condoms are for mzunga (whitemen) – said the politician-
and they should be banned” because “they are painful to use.”
Don’t trust appearances. So goodbye to condoms? As UNAIDS says the longstanding government of Premier
Yoweri Museveni (in power since 1986) has distributed 80 million condoms for free
a year, but there have been complaints about the product, so much so that this
year the number has been drastically reduced, and the Ministry of Health has now
acquired foreign quality control machinery. Madada, ion the ‘phone to PeaceReporter,
ask for us to look at things from a different perspective: “my proposal comes
with a double strategy: on one side to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted
diseases, but above all to improve the level of youth education. Among girls the
level of education is very low due to early marriage; our education system’s biggest
problem is girls giving up school. In addition to this is the problem that basic
education is free, yet to go onto university is very expensive. How can a girl
that marries at a young age follow on her studies: my region of Kayunga has the
worst record for the spread of the virus as well as girls giving up school.” This
news has caused sarcastic comments in the European media, but there could be a
lesson here of not looking at different realities with the same eyes. “You have
to understand how our society works, that now has the problem of young mothers
that are abandoned by their husbands, or that are sexually exploited- Madada continues-first
there was the so called modernisation, in the 1960’s the majority of young women
entered marriage as virgins; now however, we have a huge problem of immorality.”
The Member of Parliament maintains that this campaign is not driven by, “religious
belief, but from a clear analysis of our society,” and that one should look at
who the project is aimed at. “We are talking about adolescents of 15 years old,
one can’t believe that they are responsible adults: if you talk about protected
sex, probably they understand that the message is an incitement to practice it.
We can’t let our young people believe that everything is free for them: there
is a need to make choices in this life and for me the best is female abstinence,”
explains Madada.
Next year we’ll talk about it… But the project is still out there, universities are weighing up the proposals
for the following academic year (“I hope that we can launch the project next year”,
says the politician hopefully), and the funds are still been looked at. “We have
already contacted international NGO’s- says Madala without saying the nationality
or the religion of the agency who wants to finance this project- approval at a
local political level, in the parliament that I lead, is not an obstacle.” This
academic year 15 young girls could benefit from this funding, of course that’s
if they get the OK from the gynaecologist that they will have to visit. “The confirmation
is that few girls study because of early marriage,” insists Madada. An old view
dressed up as being progressive
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Kampala has reduced the rate of the spread of HIV from 30 to 6%. At times with methods that leave you astounded
Written for PeaceReporter
By Gianluca Ursini
By Gianluca Ursini
“The best recipe to fight the spread of HIV in Uganda is sexual abstinence;”
these are the words from Suleimane Madada Member of Parliament Bbaale county.
And the words follow the facts, if it’s true that Madada wants young women to
avoid sex they will have to demonstrate their virginity in order to get money
to pay for their expensive university fees.
No condoms, we’re Ugandan. A symptom of a national tendency: for some months the message coming from institutions
against the transmission of sexual diseases has taken a turn towards fidelity
and sexual abstinence. Leaflets have been published with two cranes, the national
symbol, twisted together in a loving pose, with the slogan: “Cranes remain faithful
for all their lives with their partner. Fidelity and abstinence are 100% safe.”
A campaign launched by a society whose benefactor is the wife of the President,
Janet Museveni, who hasn’t hidden her fondness for a caste of adolesents that
take on the practice of safe sex. The first Ugandan citizen that maintains her
admiration of the fundamentalist Christian principles of US President George.
W .Bush, and her non-governmental organisation is now destined to receive a huge
amount of the American funding for Uganda to fight HIV, funding which is distributed
through governmental agencies. The American organisation “Human Rights Watch”
has directly accused the US government of influencing the Ugandan anti AIDS campaign
through the way in which funds are allocated; and therefore having the damaging
effect of putting “the practice of safe sex on a secondary level.” At the last
G8 the United States confirmed their commitment to the fight against HIV in Africa,
giving $100 million dollars funding, of which $8 million dollars is aimed at programmes
of fidelity and abstinence in Uganda. It’s worth remembering that between 1986,
the year of the first “Ugandan Aids Commission”, until 1992 the number of sero-positive
people reached 30% in various parts of the country, with a national average of
18%, recently in Kampala it’s been pointed out by the UN agency UNAIDS, founded
to fight the disease, that Uganda has been one of the success stories of the world.
The last survey revealed that the rate of diffusion of the disease has been reduced
to 6%. An enormous reduction compared to other countries, such as South Africa
where one adult out of four is infected. Think about studying, not sex! The dramatist, activist and president of local Parliament Madada has therefore
decided to offer young women in his region, who can prove that they are virgins,
payment of their university fees supported by an NGO; they are able to 900 thousand
Ugandan shillings (450 Euro) every quarter. Already Madala is paying this through
his own pocket, funding a local programme for students of senior school, but he
is in economic difficulty, it costs one million shillings, 475 Euro. He’s not
alone in this fight. Protestant Ministers such as Pastor Martin Ssempa has called
for attention to be directed towards abstinence in order to weaken the virus,
he sustains that in the past too much importance was placed on the use of condoms
and it, “has caused a rise in the level of casual sex and infidelity among married
couples.” “Abstinence is without doubt the best opportunity for African people
to win the fight against HIV-maintains Madala- up until now condoms have been
the main focus, but Europeans don’t understand that the use of condoms requires
practice: in order to be informed, our people need to read the instructions. But
you need to remember that in our campaign that a large number of people are ignorant,
and don’t read the instructions, and refuse to use condoms.” Thoughts that are
also widespread in other countries, as was demonstrated by the Kenyan Member of
Parliament Ramadan Kajembe, during a debate on publicity for condoms: “to promote
to Kenyans is useless” “Condoms are for mzunga (whitemen) – said the politician-
and they should be banned” because “they are painful to use.” Don’t trust appearances. So goodbye to condoms? As UNAIDS says the longstanding government of Premier
Yoweri Museveni (in power since 1986) has distributed 80 million condoms for free
a year, but there have been complaints about the product, so much so that this
year the number has been drastically reduced, and the Ministry of Health has now
acquired foreign quality control machinery. Madada, ion the ‘phone to PeaceReporter,
ask for us to look at things from a different perspective: “my proposal comes
with a double strategy: on one side to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted
diseases, but above all to improve the level of youth education. Among girls the
level of education is very low due to early marriage; our education system’s biggest
problem is girls giving up school. In addition to this is the problem that basic
education is free, yet to go onto university is very expensive. How can a girl
that marries at a young age follow on her studies: my region of Kayunga has the
worst record for the spread of the virus as well as girls giving up school.” This
news has caused sarcastic comments in the European media, but there could be a
lesson here of not looking at different realities with the same eyes. “You have
to understand how our society works, that now has the problem of young mothers
that are abandoned by their husbands, or that are sexually exploited- Madada continues-first
there was the so called modernisation, in the 1960’s the majority of young women
entered marriage as virgins; now however, we have a huge problem of immorality.”
The Member of Parliament maintains that this campaign is not driven by, “religious
belief, but from a clear analysis of our society,” and that one should look at
who the project is aimed at. “We are talking about adolescents of 15 years old,
one can’t believe that they are responsible adults: if you talk about protected
sex, probably they understand that the message is an incitement to practice it.
We can’t let our young people believe that everything is free for them: there
is a need to make choices in this life and for me the best is female abstinence,”
explains Madada. Next year we’ll talk about it… But the project is still out there, universities are weighing up the proposals
for the following academic year (“I hope that we can launch the project next year”,
says the politician hopefully), and the funds are still been looked at. “We have
already contacted international NGO’s- says Madala without saying the nationality
or the religion of the agency who wants to finance this project- approval at a
local political level, in the parliament that I lead, is not an obstacle.” This
academic year 15 young girls could benefit from this funding, of course that’s
if they get the OK from the gynaecologist that they will have to visit. “The confirmation
is that few girls study because of early marriage,” insists Madada. An old view
dressed up as being progressive
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