Abstaining from Reality Chosen for the 10th United Nations Association Film Festival

A short film that demonstrates, in stark and powerful detail, the grave consequences of the United States’ abstinence-only approach to HIV prevention has been chosen for the 10th Annual United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF). Filmed in Kenya and Uganda, Abstaining from Reality: U.S. Restrictions on HIV Prevention features educators, an HIV-positive priest and a young Kenyan woman, Juliet Awuor, who contracted HIV/AIDS and became pregnant because she and her boyfriend did not know the proper way to use condoms. Awuor’s baby subsequently contracted the disease and died. This compelling documentary provides a snapshot of the Bush administration’s abstinence-only approach to global HIV/AIDS assistance.

Abstaining from Reality was one of only 32 films selected out of more than 360 submissions from all over the world. The United Nations event celebrates the power of films and videos dealing with human rights, environmental survival, women’s issues, protection of refuges, homelessness, racism, disease control, universal education, war and peace.

Abstaining from Reality notes that PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) pledges $15 billion over five years to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in 15 countries where infection rates are high, but this unprecedented U.S. effort has a major flaw: It mandates an abstinence-only approach as the lead HIV prevention strategy. A recent evaluation conducted for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirms that abstinence-only sexuality education programs, which provide no information on contraception, do not work.

Rosemarie Muganda-Onyando, a sexual and reproductive health expert based in Nairobi, says in the film, “To strictly say abstinence only is like walking into a hospital ward and having all these patients with different ailments and saying, ‘Okay, this is a prescription, it is the same prescription for all of you.’” 

Each day, some 16,000 people around the world become infected with HIV, most through unprotected sex. “If we are serious about stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS, we simply must end the ideological restrictions that are putting millions at risk and undermining much of the good work the U.S. is trying to do around the world,” said Population Action International President/CEO Amy Coen. “The recent HHS study confirms that we are exporting a program that simply doesn’t work. To continue this would be dangerous and unethical. Congress should refuse to impose these dangerous restrictions on international family planning when it reauthorizes PEPFAR this year.”

WHEN: Thursday, October 25, 2007, at 7:20 p.m.

WHERE: Annenberg Auditorium (Cummings Art Building), Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA

PRESENTER: Amy Coen, President/CEO of Population Action International

NOTE: To schedule an interview with Amy Coen or for more information on Abstaining from Reality, please contact Tyler LePard.

The documentary has been screened before the United States Congress, parliaments in several European countries and in New York City, San Francisco and Ottawa. It includes a Guide for Action that shows people how to take a stand against policies that withhold vital information about condom use and other forms of prevention, and in support of more responsible policies. 

Abstaining from Reality: U.S. Restrictions on HIV Prevention was written and directed by Daniele Anastasion and edited by Kris Kral for Population Action International.  More information and the nine-minute documentary itself are available at http://www.populationaction.org/multimedia/video/index.htm. 

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Population Action International (PAI) works to improve individual well-being and preserve global resources by mobilizing political and financial support for population, family planning and reproductive health policies and programs.