Gates: U.S. AIDS Policy Fails
By Naina Dhingra, August 15, 2006
Posted on TomPaine.commonsense
It has become clear that challenging the U.S.'s ideologically driven HIV prevention policy is a common theme of the 16th International AIDS Conference, with sectors of the global community from researchers to activists united in pushing back.
Canadian Prime Minister Steve Harper was conspicuously missing from the conference when it officially kicked off at Roger’s Stadium in Toronto, Canada, on Sunday evening. Harperrefused an invitation to speak before the conference and appease his conservative base of supporters. Mark Wainberg, one of the conference co-chairs, slammed Harper in his opening remarks for his conservative ideology and views on needle exchange. Canadian conference participants showed their displeasure by protesting Tony Clement, the Canadian Minister of Health, with large banners and booing.
While opening with the clear sign that stigma of AIDS still prevails, conference attendees left energized by Bill and Melinda Gates’ remarks . The Gates, greeted with a standing ovation, focused on the needs of women and girls. Melinda even took a poke at Bush administration policy by stating, “Some people believe that condoms encourage sexual activity, so they went to make them less available. But withholding condoms does not mean fewer people have sex; it means fewer people have safe sex, and more people die.”
Gates, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., actor Richard Gere and President Bill Clinton all made waves on Monday during the first official day of the conference. Lee partnered with Stephen Lewis, the United Nations Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa and renowned human rights activist, at a press conference on U.S. global HIV prevention policy. “It is illegitimate to dictate terms to governments that have their own policies and priorities and own ways to deal with the response. No government in the Western world has the right to dictate policy to African governments in how they structure their response. That’s called conditionality. That’s totally unacceptable in today’s world,” exclaimed Lewis.
I didn’t quite make it to the Richard Gere event with MTV President Bill Roedy, as the Swedish government was also hosting a session at the same time titled, “Morals or Politics of HIV Prevention.” The session took aim at U.S. prevention policy; the overwhelming sentiment of people in the room was that the U.S. abstinence-only approach was moralistic and stigmatizing . Farid, an HIV-positive South African Muslim who partnered with USAID on a project in South Africa, passionately said, “After the [U.S. government’s] obsession with moralism, I would never want to work on a USAID-funded project again.”
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