LAKE FOREST, Calif. (ABP) — A woman should never need her partner's permission to save her own life, Bill Gates said.
In Africa, where the AIDS pandemic is the worst, many women get infected with HIV by philandering husbands who refuse to use condoms or to be tested for the virus. The women unknowingly infect their unborn children, who are eventually orphaned after both parents die from the disease.
So prevention, not just treatment, is essential to stopping the AIDS crisis, Gates said, especially prevention that involves changing attitudes about women.
Gates, Microsoft founder and now a mega-philanthropist for world health, spoke via video presentation to the 2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church, which brought aid workers and evangelicals together to mobilize Christian resources to fight the disease worldwide.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest charitable organization in the world, focuses on healthcare and education worldwide. Some conservative groups have criticized the foundation for its support of groups that promote abortion and contraception, like International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Now that HIV/AIDS has become a truly devastating pandemic, much of the stigma associated with it — that it's a disease affecting only gay men — has dissipated. But that shift has not helped the most vulnerable victims of the crisis: heterosexual women and newborn children.
Gates and other high-profile speakers said the focus of the fight against HIV/AIDS must now shift to these new victims. And Christian churches can take a lead role in that fight, speakers said.
“Who does carry the burden of this AIDS crisis? The disproportionate [portion] lands on women,” said Deborah Dortzbach, international director of HIV/AIDS programs for World Relief. “For every 10 HIV-positive men in Africa, there are 14 HIV-positive women.”
Worldwide, women constitute almost half of the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS, at 17.3 million. Seventy-six percent of those women live in sub-Saharan Africa, according to UNAIDS, the joint United Nations program on HIV/AIDS.
What's more, each day more than 1,500 children around the world become infected with HIV. Most of them get it as newborns.
But women can be the lynchpins in stopping the spread of AIDS, several speakers told the Saddleback conference, hosted by author and pastor Rick Warren.
Among the strategies: change male attitudes and behaviors that give women little choice about sex, educate adolescent girls about their bodies, teach girls to delay sex as long as possible, supply sex-protective measures such as microbicides that aren't dependent on male cooperation, and encourage girls to stay in school longer.
“It is a proven fact that the longer girls stay in school, the better their chances for living,” Dortzbach said. “Girls need straight talk. They need facts about their bodies and ways they can protect their future. And women need skills in communicating with spouses about sex.”
Dortzbach said churches have ample opportunity, and responsibility, to mentor men and educate girls about sex and HIV. Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and Ambassador Mark Dybul, the global AIDS coordinator for the U.S Department of State, echoed that sentiment.
Churches have a natural inclination for fostering relationships, Feachem said, and strong community relations can lead to changed male attitudes about promiscuity, polygamy, rape and abuse.
“We are beginning to see social norms change,” Dybul added. “Churches that once taught polygamy are not teaching it anymore. Personal responsibility is not at odds with good public health. No, personal responsibility is good public health.”
Warren also weighed in on the vital importance women have in stopping AIDS. In many cultures, the Saddleback pastor said, people view women primarily as sexual objects. But churches can teach that Jesus treated “women as women” — with respect and admiration, he said.
Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda said he did just that when he first began working with AIDS victims in 1990. Kolini worked with women to “break the taboo of silence” and mobilize people to talk about HIV/AIDS.
Just talking about the illness doesn't help the fundamental problem that spreads it, Kolini said. So he and co-workers addressed daily family life. Sex should be discussed as freely as necessary, he said, not just before wedding days.
Part of the debate in the HIV/AIDS dialogue involves the merits of risk-avoidance methods versus risk-reduction methods. Whereas risk-avoidance preaches abstinence and mutual monogamy, risk-reduction encourages abstinence, being faithful to one partner, and condom use — known as the ABC method.
Some evangelicals have condemned the ABC approach because it does not emphasize abstinence as the only option. Others support it because it can help reduce new infections. Critics of abstinence programs have said the programs are unrealistic and place too much of a burden on changes in individual behavior.
And while Warren recognized that people often have strong sexual urges, he said “maturity means I often do things I don't want to do. It means doing the right thing, even if it's not what I want to do.”
“We're not anti-sex,” he said. “I'm for sex. I'm for abundant sex. I'm for great sex –within marriage. When God gives you a rule, it's never because he's mad at you. It's for your own protection. When I doubt God's laws, I'm basically saying, 'God, I'm smarter than you.'”
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