The Hindu : Involve religious leaders in population, AIDS programmes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 24, 2004

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Involve religious leaders in population, AIDS programmes

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, JAN. 23. Nafis Sadik, Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General said today religious leaders and men should be involved in creating awareness about women's reproductive health, population stabilisation and HIV/AIDS as part of new strategies to tackle the issue. Women's groups must support the move to involve men in creating awareness.

Speaking to a group of mediapersons here today, Dr. Sadik said the religious leaders were effectively involved in spreading the message in Indonesia, Philippines and Bangladesh. In India too, Buddhist and Hindu religious leaders had been involved in creating awareness about the population programme, but "not so much the Muslim leaders''.

UNICEF is planning a regional conference in Kathmandu later this year to involve the leaders of all faiths to fight HIV/AIDS in South Asia. Though at a recent regional conference Hindu, Budhdhist, Muslim and Christian leaders were involved there were no follow-up in the countries concerned, she regretted.

Underscoring the urgency for education and awareness, Pakistan-born Dr. Sadik is all for South Asian countries to "get over taboos'' and introduce sex education in schools. Recent reports showed that young married women were at a higher risk even with single partners because of the "sexual behaviour'' of the partners. A study in Uttar Pradesh showed that 90 per cent of the affected women were young and married and had only one partner.

Another study reported that in Karnataka, the northeast and the coastal belt, younger married women were six times more infected.

"This is an ethical issue because the wife is infected owing to the behaviour of the husband in a country (India) where a majority of marriage are arranged. This calls for stepping up measures for education and awareness and addressing the male population,'' she asserted. Dr. Sadik, who was earlier Director-General of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), is on a visit to India to deliver a lecture on `Women and Population'.

She was all praise for a recent move in Pakistan to introduce sex education in schools from the seventh standard in the North-West Frontier Province. The move was possible because of the personal initiative of the Minister for Education, Zubeida Jalal, there. "The curriculum has been agreed upon, textbooks are being sent into print and teachers are going to be trained. It is a bold and laudable effort in a Muslim country,'' she said adding that India, Bangladesh and Pakistan could have better cooperation in this direction.

Dr. Sadik said that a global level the `India-Pakistan' Diaspora of physicians in the United States had developed a joint-programme which they wanted to implement in the two countries. "Besides providing additional funding, such efforts also brought in technical assistance,'' she added.

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