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Bush theory brings jeers to Aids meet

AFP, Bangkok
US President George W. Bush's dream of braking the spread of Aids by encouraging sexual abstinence among young people came under withering fire at the global Aids conference yesterday.
Bush's special envoy on Aids, Randall Tobias, was loudly jeered by activists, who held up signs saying "HE LIES", as he came to deliver an address that gave a big push to the so-called ABC campaign.
The A is for Abstinence; B is for Being Faithful; and C is for using Condoms if those other two approaches fail.
ABC is only one prong of the US strategy to tackle Aids, and others include multibillion-dollar initiatives to carry out vital research, provide drugs to poor and sick people and train doctors, nurses and health workers.
But at the 15th International AIDS Conference here, ABC has become a fierce target of controversy.
Many experts said the initiative's focus on abstinence -- often reinforced as a moral or religious doctrine by church workers -- was not only fruitless but also potentially lethal for young people.
Abstinence should be offered as an option but only alongside educa-
tion on reproductive health and awareness about safe sex, some said.
Others suggested youngsters should be clearly told that oral sex and masturbation were fun and safe alternatives to intercourse.
ABC "is not a sufficient means of prevention for women and adolescent girls," said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, a Saudi woman who is executive director of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
"Abstinence is meaningless to women who are coerced into sex. Faithfulness offers little protection to wives whose husbands have several partners or were infected before
marriage. And condoms require the cooperation of husbands."
This was not only the case in subSaharan Africa, she said.
Studies had found that in the United States, those states where there was the biggest abstinence campaigns also had the highest rates of sexually-transmitted diseases.
Equally important was empowerment for women, a broad phrase that means ending stigma and sexual prejudice and giving women the laws, social rights and medical care to protect themselves, said
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Dennis Altman, a professor of politics at LaTrobe University, Australia.
ABC is "the old Nancy Reagan edictumu of 'just say no'," he said. "You have to actually be in a pretty good position of power to 'just say no'. Most young women are not in that position of power."
Raoul Fransen, a young Dutch aid worker in Africa who has HIV, said "rather than being taught not to have sex, young people... should be enabled to make the choice, be this abstinence or partner reduction or having access to condoms that is right for them.
"They should be supported in discovering their sexuality, its pleasures and its risks. The key lies in giving us a choice, not an ideology."
The champion of ABC is Uganda, whose president, Yoweri Museveni, was lavishly praised by Tobias for "sheer leadership and will" in fighting back HIV in his country.
But University of Pretoria researcher Mary Crewe said she doubted whether ABC was as influential as this in Uganda.
"ABC was introduced late in Uganda's prevention campaign, and there is evidence that the epidemic was already on a natural downward curve," she said.
Crewe poured scorn on the starchy, thou-must-not tone that invariably accompanied abstinence campaigns.
It had little resonance for young people who were burning with sexual energy and eager to experiment.
"We have to make abstinence sexy, not holy," said Crewe.
Altman suggested that governments, religious leaders and families get home the message that "there are other forms of sexual pleasure than intercourse," including oral sex and masturbation.
"If the alternative is a massive infection, then people should have to face the fact that prudery should be pushed out of the window."