NAIROBI, Kenya – Promiscuity and other risky sexual behavior must change to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Saturday.
Young Kenyans, including an 11-year-old girl, had a frank discussion with Powell about promiscuity, resistance to condoms and the cultural expectation that young girls have sex with much older men.
“Those sorts of patterns of behavior have to change to protect young people,” Powell told the gathering.
Powell is in Africa to attend a signing ceremony ending north-south fighting in Sudan. The two-decade-old conflict is Africa’s longest-running civil war. Powell met with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki after the AIDS round-table Saturday.
The Sudanese peace accord does not address the more recent fighting and refugee crisis in Sudan’s western Darfur region, which Powell has called genocide. He planned to press Sudanese government leaders to resolve the Darfur crisis during the weekend meetings.
About 7 percent of adult Kenyans are infected with HIV or have AIDS, a rate much higher than western nations but lower than some countries in southern Africa where 20 percent or more of the population is infected.
“Africa I think for too long a period of time ignored the problem, looked the other way and said ‘no, this isn’t happening here,’” Powell said.
He criticized African countries, without naming them, that denied AIDS was a problem. Powell also noted former South African President Nelson Mandela’s disclosure this week that his son died of complications from AIDS.
“More and more people are willing to speak out about this and not hide,” Powell said.
AIDS kills more than 600 people every day in South Africa. Mandela’s successor, Thabo Mbeki, once denied knowing anyone who had died of the disease.
Powell sat in a circle with 19 Kenyans, most in their teens and 20s, who work to prevent HIV transmission among their peers. The discussion included blunt discussion of sexual and cultural practices, including what 24-year-old Boniface Mwendwa described as social pressure for young women to have sex with “people we call sugar daddies.”
Older men are much more likely than young girls or women to carry the disease, and older men-to-younger-women is a major source of transmission in Kenya and elsewhere.
“Are you getting through to the young people, or do you say you’re square?” Powell asked.
Reception is better now than it used to be, Powell was told. Abstinence, faithfulness to a single partner and condom use are discussed much more openly than a few years ago, and more Kenyans are open about their HIV status. At least one of the young women who spoke to Powell on Saturday is HIV positive.
The anti-AIDS message starts early. Eleven-year-old Grace Gathoni is a member of the Brownie patrol at her elementary school. She came to the meeting dressed in her uniform.
“We learn about HIV and AIDS, and sexually transmitted diseases,” at school, she said. “We are also taught to value our virginity, our education and our life.”
Before arriving in Nairobi on Friday, Powell spent five days touring countries hit by last month’s killer tsunami. He said he will give President Bush a report Monday on the tsunami damage and U.S. aid to the region.
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