IRIN Focus on safe-sex in prisons

Thousands of inmates in Southern African prisons face a constant threat of HIV-infection because conservative national authorities deny them condoms, a United Nations agency said. The United Nations Joint Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) said many governments refuse to provide condoms in prisons because they fear it would encourage homosexuality among inmates. However, governments’ refusal to acknowledge the problem means that inmates forced by circumstances into same-sex relationships are denied the right to safe sex. The UN agency said in a report compiled with southern African NGOs that studies had uncovered a practice of rampant homosexuality in prisons in the sub-region. “No survey of HIV risk has been undertaken in Swazi prisons, but surveys from neighbouring Malawi and Zambia show that at least one in eight men has sex in prison,” the report, entitled ‘Men and HIV in Swaziland’ said. The report, based on studies by the Family Life Association of Swaziland (FLAS), the Southern Africa AIDS Information Dissemination Service (SAfAIDS) and Panos said homosexuality in prison was either consensual or the result of rape or other forms of exploitation. “It may also be a mutually beneficial arrangement whereby a younger or weaker man receives protection or benefits such as food from an older, stronger man in exchange of sexual services,” the report said. “In most cases, men who have sex in prison would never do so in the world outside,” it added. Failing to meet the challenge Despite the findings of the studies, however, many African governments have failed to adequately rise to the challenges that prison sex holds for their anti-AIDS programmes. In Swaziland, the government acknowledged the fact that homosexuality in prisons enhances the spread of HIV/AIDS, but has not provided condoms to inmates, concentrating instead of efforts to curb prison sex. "Correctional service authorities will be encouraged to take all necessary measures, including adequate staffing, surveillance and appropriate disciplinary measures, to protect prison inmates from rape, sexual violence and coercion," the ministry of health said in its 'Policy Document on HIV/AIDS and STD Prevention and Control'. Recently, the Family Life Association of Swaziland, an NGO that leads a campaign for safe sex practices, offered to provide prisoners with free condoms. However, the prisons department said last week it would not allow it because "it is against the country’s policy on the use of condoms". Mnguni Simelane, commissioner of His Majesty’s Correctional Services, said the government did not recognise homosexuality, and would not encourage it by giving out condoms. The prison authorities’ stance is supported by the Swaziland Federation of Ex-prisoners. While conceding that there was homosexual activity in prisons, the organisation said the distribution of condoms would only encourage indulgence in the "unnatural" practice. "Biblically, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of homosexuality. Similarly, the country would be destroyed if we distributed condoms in prisons because this would promote the practice of homosexuality," federation vice chairman Lucky Nhlabatsi said. Moreover, prison warders would victimise prisoners who were discovered to have used condoms that had been allocated to them. "They would be expected to tell on whom they had used the condoms," he said. Swaziland has the second highest incidence of HIV-infection in the world after Botswana, with an estimated 22 percent of its one million people believed to be HIV-positive. One of a handful of middle-income countries in Africa, it has seen life expectancy drop from 61 years in 1991 to around 39 years as a direct consequence of HIV/AIDS. The government conservatively expects the number of AIDS-related deaths, currently estimated at 50,000, to rise to around 300,000 by the year 2016. According to UNAIDS, attitudes that inadvertently expose homosexuals to HIV-infection are not unique to Swaziland. “Most governments in the region will not provide condoms in prisons because they believe that would be encouraging homosexuality,” UNAIDS country programme advisor Bernadette Olowo-Freers told IRIN. Reshaping attitudes Despite official intolerance of homosexuality, some civic groups in the sub-region are beginning to reshape societal attitudes towards homosexuality by campaigning for safer sex in prisons. In Zambia, for example, there have been limited programmes led by medical practitioners to provide condoms in prisons in recent years, Olowo-Freers said. However, the impact of the programmes had not yet been established. While such programmes may still be impracticable in more conservative Swaziland, societal attitudes towards homosexuality appear to be changing, with society beginning to accept it as a real, if unwanted phenomenon. For example, a recently established NGO, the Swaziland Association of Men, seeks to provide counselling and support for the increasing number of men who are raped or abused in prisons and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the government’s AIDS Management and Technical Committee said this week that a new policy document it had helped to draft recommended the distribution of condoms in prisons. "Condoms may be presented in prisons in the future, but it will be a gradual process, starting with awareness campaigns," committee head Christabel Motsa said. Such initiatives have the tacit approval of UN agencies. "While all governments must determine their own HIV/AIDS programmes, we believe that all people, regardless of their circumstances, must be given the means to have safe sex," Olowo-Freers said.