Abstaining from Reality Tours Europe

The nine-minute documentary, Abstaining from Reality: U.S. Restrictions on HIV Prevention, exposes the dangers of U.S. abstinence-only HIV prevention policies, told through first-hand accounts of the women and men affected by the epidemic in Kenya and Uganda. It demonstrates in the starkest terms that U.S. policies are placing people the world over—particularly women—at greater risk of contracting HIV because of the lack of evidence-based education and prevention programs in favor of abstinence-only programs.

The documentary focuses on the life of Juliet Awuor, a young Kenyan who contracted HIV during her first sexual encounter at age 17 and says that neither she nor her partner understood how to correctly use a condom.  Also featured are prominent community leaders such as Rosemarie Muganda Onyando from the Centre for the Study of Adolescence (Kenya), Pastor Martin Ssempa of the Makerere Community Church (Uganda), Gabriel Amori from the Uganda Network of Religious Leaders Living with or Affected by HIV/AIDS, and the Reverend Canon Gideon Byamugishi, the first known African church leader to declare he was HIV-positive.  Abstaining from Reality puts a human face on the consequences of U.S. policies that promote abstinence-only.

PAI launched the documentary in the British Parliament on International Women's Day, March 8, 2007. The documentary's world premiere was co-sponsored by PAI, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the U.K. All Party Parliamentary Groups on AIDS and Development and Population and Reproductive Health.

Following the premiere in London, PAI showed the documentary to Parliamentary and NGO audiences in Copenhagen, co-sponsored by Sex og Samfund, and in Stockholm in partnership with RFSU.

Abstaining from Reality will premiere in the U.S. on May 15th on Capitol Hill, with viewings in other U.S. cities to follow.

Watch Abstaining from Reality online.

Or email pubinq@popact.org to order a copy