Gambia: Condom Campaign Angers Catholic Cleric

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS
September 15, 2004
Posted to the web September 15, 2004
Banjul

The Roman Catholic Church has voiced its opposition to the use of condoms
to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in Gambia, challenging a government-
backed prevention campaign based on the distribution of cheap
contraceptives to the country's youth.

Father Edward Gomez, a well-known Catholic priest who regularly presents
discussion programmes on local television, made the church's position clear
at a workshop on Advocacy and Effective Behavior Change Techniques,
sponsored by a Catholic youth organization called Gambia Aids Service
(GAS), in Banjul last week.

"The church does not teach that condoms should be used for the prevention
of HIV/AIDS or for contraceptive purposes," Father Gomez said.

He advised the Catholic youths to seek more knowledge about their faith and
its teaching on the issue of HIV/AIDS in order to avoid being "misled by
public opinion that condoms should be made easily accessible for sex".

The church's reaction against condoms was triggered by an increasingly
aggressive media campaign launched by the state-sponsored Gambia Social
Marketing Management Programme. This seeks to put condoms and contraceptive
pills within easy reach of all sexually active Gambians.

The campaigners have packaged the condoms and pills in chocolate-style
packs which are sold cheaply under the brand names of "cool" and "kairo".

About 85 percent of the Gambia's 1.3 million population is Muslim, but the
christian churches still exert a strong social influence in the small West
African country, especially among its educated elite.

The Gambia has a relatively low HIV infection rate, officially estimated at
1.6 percent of the population aged between 15 and 49.

However, many humanitarian workers fear that the real HIV prevalence rate
is much higher because of an increase in the sexual abuse of local
children.

Gambia has long been linked with sex tourism from Western Europe, but the
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a study published in May
that the main abusers of local children were Gambian males.

It warned that for most of the girls involved, this was just the beginning
of a downward spiral that often resulted in child pregnancy, clandestine
abortion, violent abuse, HIV infection and exposure to AIDS.

Between 1986, when the first case of AIDS was reported in Gambia, until
2001, the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) reported that over 1,500
people died from AIDS in the country. A further 8,500 people are estimated
to be living with the HIV virus that eventually causes AIDS.

Father Gomez recognized the reality of the pandemic in Gambia.

"AIDS is real and it exists in our country," he told the Catholic
youths. "Those who dismiss the virus and disease as American ploys to
discourage sex are the actual joke."

But the priest, who administers the Roman Catholic cathedral in Banjul,
pledged that his church would fulfill its responsibility to by providing
its members with "moral guidance" to protect them from HIV infection.

John Sylva, the director of the Catholic Development Office, proposed an
alternative interpretation of the ABC AIDS control slogan, which stands
for "Abstain, Be careful, Condomise."

He recommended that 'C' should simply stand for "Change Behaviour."


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