The UNFPA launched its global HIV/AIDS awareness campaign on World AIDS Day, 1 December 1999, with praise tor the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). UNAIDS, in turn, promoted the female condom (femidom) as one of the “best practices” to protect against the AIDS epidemic that is depopulating Africa.
The AIDS epidemic is particularly devastating in Namibia, where 150,000 thousand men and women are infected (19.94 percent of the population); in South Africa, where 2.8 million are infected (12.91 percent), and in Uganda which has 870,000 million victims, (9.51 per-cent). UNAIDS Executive Director and Spokesman, Peter Piot, has stumped throughout much of Africa, but particularly in Uganda where his campaign won governmental support. In Africa’s Great Lakes region, Piot introduced “The Initiative,” the purpose of which is “to promote condoms through Social marketing” in order “to turn the tide of the AIDS epidemic.” The Initiative especially targets prostitutes along trucking routes and women in refugee settings.
The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) claims The Initiative “[s]erves as a model for AIDS prevention in Africa.” UNAIDS’ femidom campaign is as widespread as the AIDS epidemic. UNAIDS markets the femidom throughout the entire continent.
(UNFPA, “Statement of Nafis Sadik,” 1 December 1999, http://www.unfpa.org/about/statements/1999/aidsday99.htm; UNAIDS, “The female condom and Aids,” April 1997, http://www.unaids.org/publications/documents/care/fcondoms/fcondompve.pdf; UNAIDS, “New AIDS Initiative to encourage Cross-Border Collaboration in Great Lakes Region of Africa,” 27 April, 1999; IPPF News, “Uganda Serves as Model …,” 24 January 2000).
