NCJW President Phyllis Snyder's Op-Ed for International Women's Day Published

March 6, 2008, Washington, DC -- The following op-ed was published on the website of The New York Jewish Week. The article, written by NCJW President Phyllis Snyder, commemorates International Women's Day by urging support for strong, evidence-based global HIV/AIDS prevention programs.

March 8 marks International Women's Day, a day to commemorate the worldwide struggles of women to achieve justice and equality. Its origins are in fact American: on this day in 1857, New York City garment workers marched to demand improved working conditions, a ten-hour day, and equal rights for women. Again on March 8, 1908, women workers renewed the struggle and marched for the vote and an end to sweatshops and child labor. That march led to the first proclamation of International Women's Day.

For the millions of women whose lives have been impacted by the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, the struggle for justice and equality is more dire than the earliest advocates of a March 8 holiday could have imagined. According to the United Nations (UN), three-quarters of all HIV-positive Africans between the ages of 15 and 24 are women.

Thankfully, the US is a leader in the fight against AIDS through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has provided $15 billion to combat AIDS in Africa since 2003. President Bush's breakthrough effort is to be highly commended. But money is not enough. If those billions are not spent wisely, countless preventable deaths will result.

AIDS prevention programs in Africa must take into account two significant factors, among many others. First, about half of all African women marry by age 18. They have no real choice. Second, these young women -- some really children -- do not have control over the timing or frequency of sexual intercourse. They are not empowered to negotiate safe sex, and while they may remain faithful, they are without recourse if their husbands choose to have multiple sexual partners. For these women, the Bush administration's anti-AIDS strategy misses the mark.

When sex is the topic, the fundamentalist right goes into high gear, and HIV/AIDS is no exception. The result has been that from the start, one-third of PEPFAR dollars for prevention have been restricted to abstinence-only programs -- no matter that for the majority of these women, abstinence is not an option. Although abstinence-only as a means of preventing both pregnancy and disease has been widely discredited by scientific studies, broader successful African prevention programs promoting safe sex and condom use have become suspect and, in some cases, have been abandoned. Furthermore, organizations receiving PEPFAR funds must adopt a specific policy against "prostitution and human trafficking," which increases stigma and constrains outreach to this high-risk population.

Now PEPFAR is up for reauthorization and the struggle to clear away these crippling provisions is underway. Sadly, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs has just passed a bill that incorporates the legacy of abstinence-only. The increased funding is to be celebrated; the provisions to circumscribe how it is to be spent are deeply discouraging and ought to be removed by the Senate. The House version eliminates the one-third restriction, but substitutes a requirement that prevention programs spend one-half of their funds on "behavior change," and report back if they don't spend funds in this manner. The reporting requirement is bound to have a chilling effect -- it carries an implicit threat about future funding.

Even worse, the House PEPFAR bill appears to restrict PEPFAR participation to family planning programs willing to sign the US global gag rule that bars funding of abortions or abortion counseling. This new provision will likely disrupt efforts by existing family planning programs to integrate AIDS prevention and family planning efforts. And the bill eliminates language supporting programs working to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV by offering voluntary contraception services to participants.

We can do a lot better. Fifty billion dollars over the next five years would certainly be several huge steps forward, but $50 billion encumbered by ideologically-driven spending restrictions is a step back. Targeting women is key to reversing the HIV infection rate in Africa. The Senate needs to reauthorize PEPFAR without chaining this vital program to provisions that hinder rather than help AIDS prevention among women and men. An International Women's Day dedicated to that goal would be a worthy commemoration of the women’s marches for justice and equality of a century ago.

NCJW is a volunteer organization, inspired by Jewish values, that works to improve the quality of life for women, children, and families and to ensure individual rights and freedoms for all through its network of 90,000 members, supporters, and volunteers nationwide.

Contact:
Emily Alfano
202 296 2588 x5; emily@ncjwdc.org