Women’s Advocacy Groups Give Bush Administration ‘D’ Grade for ‘Reality’ of Global AIDS Initiative
Although the Bush administration "talks" about fighting the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, the administration "does too little in the field" to deliver on its promises, according to the third quarterly Global Women's Issues Scorecard produced by the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Center for Health and Gender Equality and the Women's Environment and Development Organization, the Associated Press reports (Borst, Associated Press, 3/4). Although the scorecard gives the administration a "B" grade for "rhetoric" on its global AIDS initiative, it gives the administration a "D" for the "reality" of the initiative, according to a Global Women's Issues Scorecard release. According to the scorecard, the administration's global HIV/AIDS strategy "promotes ideology over science in HIV prevention" by "making abstinence-only education its primary focus in Africa and the Caribbean" (Global Women's Scorecard release, 3/4). "There are several things to suggest the rhetoric is a political strategy," CHANGE Executive Director Jodi Jacobson said, adding, "The abstinence-only strategy has never been proved to work anywhere." Jacobson added that Bush's policy uses a "value-laden and religious perspective rather than a public health approach" to fight HIV/AIDS. Jacobson also said that the administration "ignores" the impact of poverty and violence against women in the spread of HIV/AIDS in developing countries, according to the Associated Press (Associated Press, 3/4).
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