For Immediate Release:	June 29, 2004
For More Information:	Jodi Jacobson, Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), jjacobson@genderhealth.org, 301-270-1182
Sponsor Organization:	Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE)
“The Bush Administration has repeatedly shown that it is willing to sacrifice the lives and health of untold numbers of women worldwide in pursuit of its narrow ideological agenda”
In 1994, the United States joined 178 other nations in signing the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD PoA). This agreement underscored the threat posed by the rapid spread of HIV to the lives and health of women and girls. Ten years later, that threat has been realized, in part due to the slow response by governments and donor agencies in addressing HIV/AIDS. Today, women represent the majority of those infected with HIV worldwide, and 60 percent of those in sub-Saharan Africa. Reducing the spread of HIV infection among women and girls requires integrated approaches—providing comprehensive sexual health information, services, and technologies, establishing women’s economic and social rights, and responding to gender-based violence—all steps strongly endorsed by the ICPD action program. But the Bush Administration is expected to try to undermine this consensus by attempting to derail reaffirmation of the ICPD PoA at this week’s meeting of the Economic Commission for Latin America in San Juan, Puerto Rico. By doing so, the U.S. will further erode international collaboration to stop the spread of HIV infection. Unprotected heterosexual sex is the single most important factor in the spread of HIV worldwide. In many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, HIV prevalence rates in the general population are as high as 25 to 40 percent. In many of these same countries, recent data indicate that the rate of new infections is spreading fastest among married women and adolescent girls. But rather than funding comprehensive strategies that address the needs of women, the Bush Administration is exporting almost exclusively “abstinence-until-marriage” strategies that have been proven in several major studies in the United States to be ineffective in preventing sexually transmitted infections or unintended pregnancy, and that are largely irrelevant in a context where the majority of women and girls are already married. “There is no evidence from anywhere in the world that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs work to reduce the rate of either HIV infections or other adverse sexual or reproductive health outcomes,” states Jodi L. Jacobson, Executive Director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity. Strategies to delay and reduce sexual activity among unmarried adolescents are critical, so long as these are part of comprehensive strategies that teach sexually active teens how to avoid infection. “Abstinence-only is a fiction of the religious right, one supported by an administration that constantly employs selective use of data and field experience to support what is otherwise a religious crusade, not a public health policy,” asserts Jacobson. The Administration’s Global AIDS Strategy focuses on condoms as a tool for “high-risk” groups, like sex workers and sero-discordant couples. But in countries such as Botswana, where over 35 percent of those ages 15 to 49 are HIV-positive, everyone is high risk. Even despite the evidence, “the Bush strategy consistently refers to support for condoms only ‘where appropriate,’ and ‘among high-risk groups,’ as though these were easily identifiable sub-groups” says Carmen Barosso, Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s Western Hemisphere Region. ”This focus on ‘high-risk’ groups threatens to undermine global efforts to reduce the very stigma and discrimination the Bush strategy claims to want to diminish. And the supply of U.S.-provided condoms is drying up in many places where they are most needed because family-planning agencies refuse to be silenced by the Bush Administration’s Global Gag Rule.” The Global AIDS Strategy rhetorically supports integrating HIV prevention, counseling and testing with family planning and reproductive health services, “but U.S. funding been deliberately driven away from comprehensive health programs,” asserted Alia Khan of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The plan is silent on the female condom, the only existing female-controlled prevention technology. “The Bush plan does not contain even one mention of support for or expanded access to female condoms, a technology proven to reduce women’s risk of HIV and increase overall condom use,” notes Jacobson. Nor has the Global AIDS Coordinator (SGAC) developed a plan to address gender-based violence despite the mounting evidence of the connection between violence and high rates of HIV transmission. “The Bush Administration has repeatedly shown that it is willing to sacrifice the lives and health of untold numbers of women worldwide in pursuit of its narrow ideological agenda,” states Khan. *************END***********