A health-advocacy group has accused the Bush-administration of hindering a vital anti-AIDS effort in Africa.
The Center for Health and Gender Equity, a Washington-based health-policy advocacy group, said that on the eve of World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, the US administration has imposed a global gag rule on groups seeking funding for a large project to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa.
The gag rule, also known as the “Mexico City Policy,” denies US international family-planning funding to foreign non-governmental organizations that provide services such as safe abortions, counseling, referral, information on safe abortion and research on the effects of unsafe abortion, the center claimed.
This means that organizations that seek funding are required to adhere to the administrations policy that the health organization not provide abortions, provide any information about safe abortions to women or lobby for change in their nations abortion laws.
CHANGE said it spotted the change in a request for applications issued Nov. 18 by the US Agency for International Development for 193 million US dollar (ca. 1,2 milliarder kr.) in grants for five years of aids-prevention-programs in Kenya, where complications from illegal abortions are a leading killer of married women in their 20s and 30s.
Women and girls make up 60 percent of those infected by HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, the region hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic, and the rate of new infections is highest among women in their 20s and 30s in most countries of the region, the group said.
– Given these realities, this shift in policy goes beyond hypocrisy to sheer irresponsibility and complete disregard for the lives and welfare of women and girls worldwide, said CHANGE Executive Director Jodi Jacobson.
– The administration has broken its own written commitment not to subject global AIDS funds to these onerous restrictions, added she.
In August 2003, the Bush administration exempted AIDS funds from the global “gag rule”, although most other womens health programs overseen by the State Department are included.
Kilder: Womens Enews og The Push Journal
