Majority of HIV/AIDS Prevention Funding to be Diverted to Abstinence Programs with New Bush Administration Directive
Washington DC - December 15, 2005A new directive from the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) significantly restricts the use of HIV/AIDS prevention funding. Two-thirds of all prevention funding for the sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS is now limited to abstinence-until-marriage programs. The new mandate differs from what Congress intended and will further erode support for comprehensive programs to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS.
Under current law, only 20% of all PEPFAR funds are earmarked for prevention activities, and at least one-third of those prevention funds were to be restricted to abstinence-until-marriage programs.
This disclosure, made public by an unnamed federal AIDS official concerned with its potentially harmful impact, states that in 2006 each recipient country “should strive to dedicate at least 50 percent of total prevention funds to sexual transmission,” (the other 50 percent is divided between efforts to prevent mother-to-child-transmission and blood safety programs) “and within sexual transmission funds, to dedicate at least 66 percent to AB [abstinence-until-marriage and be-faithful programs].”
PAI calls on Congress to clarify its original intent with the abstinence-until-marriage earmark. Without this congressional action, countries will be forced to limit spending on comprehensive HIV prevention activities, placing millions of people, particularly women and girls, at risk of HIV infection.
BACKGROUND
According to UNAIDS, young people between the ages of 15 and 24 are “the most threatened by AIDS,” and “are at the centre of HIV vulnerability.” Globally, this age group accounts for half of all new cases of HIV each year. In many sub-Saharan countries, at least half of all women have sex before aged 20 and before marriage. Even after marriage, women remain at great, sometimes increasing, risk of HIV infection.
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), signed into law by President Bush in 2003, is a 5-year, $15 billion initiative to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in 15 of the world’s most affected countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia. An increasing amount of evidence has highlighted the fact that the law is handicapped with ideologically-based restrictions that are limiting its effectiveness for some of world’s most vulnerable, at-risk populations, namely women and girls.
Two hundred forty-two members in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate opposed the one-third earmark. PAI and countless other non-governmental organizations supported their opposition.
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.
