Pope Benedict XVI has caused controversy before even landing in Cameroon for his first visit to Africa.
While en route from Rome, the pope told reporters on his official plane that condoms were not the answer to fighting Africa’s HIV epidemic.
He told the reporters that the epidemic ‘is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, and that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which may even aggravate the problem.’
The Catholic Church recommends abstinence and monogamy within marriage as the best solutions to the problem and in a speech given shortly after being elected, Pope Benedict said these were ‘the only sure way of preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS.’
His comments have outraged health and advocacy groups such as the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa, who have hit out at the pontiff on their website calling his comments irresponsible.
In a statement on their website (www.tac.org.za) TAC says research shows abstinence-only programs favoured by the pope are ineffective and need to be backed-up by sexual education.
‘Preaching abstinence to many communities in Africa is alienating and irrelevant.
‘Many sexual encounters in marginal communities with high rates of HIV infection are coercive or transactional.
‘In contexts in which gender inequality is rife, to instruct women to abstain from sex or to remain faithful to only one partner demonstrates an ignorance of their sexual realities.’
The World Health Organization, UNAIDS and UNFPA position statement on condoms and HIV prevention lists the male latex condom as ‘the single, most efficient, available technology to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV’ and that their consistent and correct use reduces the risk of HIV infection by 90 percent.
UN figures state that there are 22 million people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, which amounts to 67 percent of the global total.
Also during his time in Cameroon, Amnesty International has urged Pope Benedict to condemn the criminalization of homosexuality in that country.
Amnesty International says dozens of young men and women have been jailed or fined for allegedly engaging in homosexual behaviour over the last three years.
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