Inter Press Service - June 13, 2000
Gustavo Capdevila

It is essential to invest much more in education and improving the information available to young people, maintained Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, the specialised UN agency in the fight against this epidemic.

The discussion also covered the problems of erroneous beliefs and superstitions about AIDS and the role of religion.

At the meeting, chaired by Nafis Sadik, director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Piot stressed that AIDS has become one of the major crises affecting development, not just in the present, but in the future as well.

Adolescent females represent 50 percent of all new infections and this trend must direct our priorities, he said.

More than 20 percent of the population in western and central Africa between the ages of 15 and 19 are HIV positive - they carry the virus that leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).

Young women are more vulnerable to infection because, in general, in these African cultures, women have sexual relations with older men - who are more likely to have had multiple partners - and because these relations are often against their will, Piot pointed out.

Prevention programmes have proven successful among young people. Adults tend to believe that adolescents are not interested in such issues, but they are in fact receptive to the idea of safe sexual behaviour, much more so than adult men, he said.

Progress in the fight against AIDS is achieved through various simultaneous actions. It is just as important to invest in educating women as it is to promote condom use, for example, and it is also essential that men participate in the process, said the UNAIDS leader.

In addition, said Piot, young people have the right to see their interests reflected in national health policy.

Mpule Kwelagobe, a Botswana native who was crowned Miss Universe 1999, is currently a UNFPA Good-Will Ambassador. She agrees that adolescents must be included in the formulation of AIDS-prevention policies.

"Nobody ever spoke about it to me or my friends. Since we were not prostitutes or homosexuals, nobody thought we needed to know about HIV and AIDS," says Kwelagobe, age 20.

In this context, ignorance and superstition can reach extremes. A friend had told Kwelagobe that, according to her boyfriend, having sex standing up prevents transmission of the virus.

President of the Family Planning Association of Trinidad and Tobago, Jacqueline Sharpe, stated that a widespread belief in the Caribbean is that AIDS can be cured by sexual relations with a young female virgin.

All this indicates that the role of men in the anti-AIDS fight is fundamental, said the Caribbean doctor. Girls are generally infected with HIV and impregnated by men who are 10 to 15 years older. Programmes that target men aged 25 to 35 are essential, Sharpe maintained.

She said those responsible for these HIV transmissions and pregnancies are often wealthy men who can give the girls money.

In the Caribbean there are also tourist areas where an informal sex trade has developed. Adolescents, men and women offer sexual services on the beaches, Sharpe added.

Kenyan doctor Khama Rogo said that in Africa no group can change the customs of the population unless it has the support and participation of the religious sectors.

Efforts must be made to reduce the vulnerability of young people to AIDS, but it is also necessary to modify the role of organisations involved in the issue, including religious ones, he said. Instead of wasting energy attacking each other, we should be attacking AIDS, the enemy of adolescents, Rogo said.

He proposed organising a high-level conference for the African continent, involving politicians, religious leaders, doctors and other sectors, in order to evaluate what each sector is doing in the area and to combine efforts.

In the city where Rogo lives, close to Lake Victoria, "we bury a young person every day. The busiest people are the religious leaders who are in charge of the funerals. What are we working for? To satisfy our own egos?" he wondered.

In Nairobi, he said religious groups gathered and made a bonfire of condoms, alleging that condoms transmit HIV. "That is irresponsible."

As far as religion's role in the AIDS issue in Trinidad and Tobago, Sharpe said her organisation is working with Hindu associations, providing medical services, but without dictating specific sexual behaviours.

Piot commented that there are differences among religions and between people - who may or may not be open to certain anti-AIDS efforts. To this end, the message of UNAIDS is that it is not necessary to agree with every point because certain measures can complement others.

In the Sudan and Uganda, the UN agency reached cooperative agreements with Islamic groups. AIDS education materials contain quotes from the Koran and were prepared by Muslim clerics, Piot explained.

According to the UNAIDS official's experience, the Catholic churches have participated in the effort from the start. In Uganda, for example, a Catholic bishop led an HIV/AIDS working group with representatives from various sectors of society.

Last year, UNAIDS sponsored a meeting of churches in Botswana, hosted by the Salvation Army, a Protestant organisation.

Piot said that when it comes to AIDS, the Catholic Church is "less monolithic than you would think." In 1999, he participated in a meeting at the Vatican on the AIDS issue. The Church has many HIV infected priests, he pointed out.

The Church's discussions tend to focus on what it can do in the educational sphere. Caritas International, one of the largest non- governmental organisations in the world, works within its Catholic morals and ethics, while UNAIDS applies a pluralistic approach, Piot explained.

The chief of this UN agency called attention to the agreement signed last week with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to bring the anti-AIDS campaign to the world's workers' unions - because they continue to be a refuge for 'machismo,' Piot said. (END/IPS/tra-so/pc/mj/ld/00)
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