The President’s relief plan ignores the gender dimensions of the AIDS epidemic, and women are paying for it with their lives.

Bush’s Failed Global AIDS Plan
By Sarah Fort 

In his January 2003 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush announced a $15 billion initiative to “turn the tide” against AIDS, targeted mainly at 14 of the hardest-hit African and Caribbean countries, plus Vietnam. That would virtually triple the U.S. commitment, offering renewed hope to the nearly 30 million AIDS sufferers in Africa alone.

It all sounded grand.

But very quickly, the strings of the plan — now known as PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — began to show. Starting in 2004, the United States recommended — and by 2006 required — that 33 percent of all prevention funding be earmarked for abstinence and fidelity programs. Condoms could be recommended only for high-risk groups, not for sexually active people in general. No funds would be provided to groups that don’t explicitly condemn prostitution. Finally, the Bush administration seemed to be spreading a significant share of AIDS funding through faith-based groups.

Meanwhile, the AIDS pandemic has been rapidly feminized over the past 15 years. But PEPFAR — underpinned by the political and religious philosophies of the Bush administration — often doesn’t take into account the facts of life for women in the countries it serves.

“The gender dimensions of the epidemic are completely ignored,” says Beatrice Were, a Ugandan mother of three who has devoted herself to AIDS activism since 1993. “We know very well that women don’t [always] have control [over sexual decisions]. There is rape in marriage. … Many women can’t make a decision on whether to have protected sex or not, even whether to have sex or not, because it’s their husbands [who] make the decision.”

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