VOA标准英语2009年-Malian Women Push Condom Use to Reduce Spr

By Scott Stearns
Dakar
21 October 2009

Women in Mali are encouraging more men to use condoms to slow the spread of the virus that causes AIDS.

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Mali is low for West Africa, effecting less than two percent of the adult population.

Since 2003, the U.S. Agency for International Development has been working with the Malian League of Imams and Scholars on an Imam Outreach program to include prevention messages in Friday sermons.

Diarra Munjara heads a group for Malian women and children effected by AIDS. Some are HIV positive. Others have lost husbands or fathers to the disease.

Munjara says her group needed the support of religious leaders to help lower the stigma¹ surrounding HIV-positive women. With the help of other civil society groups and President Amadou Toumani Toure, Munjara says that education program has made real progress.

The problem now is what happens to women when their husbands die from AIDS. Munjara says a woman's in-laws expect her to marry her late husband's brother to keep the inheritance in the family. If a woman says no, the in-laws can take her children and prevent her from inheriting anything, even if the only reason she does not want to marry her brother-in-law is to keep from infecting him with HIV.

Munjara says the problem is that many in-laws do not believe the disease exists. They say a wife who refuses to marry her brother-in-law is trying to sabotage² tradition.

Even if a woman agrees to remarry and they go for their blood tests, when the health worker encourages the man to use a condom, Munjara says many men refuse. She says women do not traditionally have the standing³ to talk about condoms with their husbands. Husbands make all the decisions. So if the disease is spreading, Munjara says it is the fault of the men.

Munjara says her group does sometimes succeed in educating men about condom use and some do use them. But others, even when they know the risks, do not want to use condoms. And when their wives insist, she says that can lead to divorce.

Health officials in Mali estimate that about one-third of men between the ages of 15 and 24 use condoms. The figure is even lower for higher-risk members of the sexually-active population including soldiers and truck drivers.

One of the groups trying to increase condom use is Mali's Association of Young People Against AIDS and Sexually-Transmitted Disease. Moussa Sango is the group's president.

Sango says his group's sensitization and prevention programs focus on bars and restaurants where they counsel both men and prostitutes about the need to practice safe sex.

Market women in Mali are also organized against AIDS. Samoura Dembele heads their group.

Dembele says women in Bamako's two largest markets talk to their customers about preventing AIDS and train other market women to spread the message outside the capital. She says the group encourages women to get tested for HIV. And if they are positive, the market women help them find proper treatment.

Sheikh Omar Toure runs the AIDS awareness⁴ group Wanaso which focuses on prevention campaigns and information sharing among AIDS groups in the 15 countries of the Economic Community of West African states as well as Mauritania.

Toure says civil society groups face many challenges to changing the way the epidemic⁵ is spread including finding sustainable financing, integrating the work of anti-tuberculosis campaigns, reducing the stigmatization⁶ and discrimination surrounding the disease, improving access for treatment, and boosting efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

 

1 stigma   

n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头

参考例句：

• Being an unmarried mother used to carry a social stigma.做未婚母亲在社会上曾是不光彩的事。
• The stigma of losing weighed heavily on the team.失败的耻辱让整个队伍压力沉重。

2 sabotage   

n.怠工，破坏活动，破坏；v.从事破坏活动，妨害，破坏

参考例句：

• They tried to sabotage my birthday party.他们企图破坏我的生日晚会。
• The fire at the factory was caused by sabotage.那家工厂的火灾是有人蓄意破坏引起的。

3 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

4 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

5 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

6 stigmatization   

n.描绘，陈述

参考例句：