Lee Fights For Better AIDS Policy

By Rebecca Vesely, Women's eNews. Posted July 31, 2004.

At the International AIDS Conference in Thailand, Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, bolstered her reputation as one of the most vocal opponents of the Bush administration's international policies.

In September 2001, Lee became famous for being the lone member of Congress to vote against giving the president authority to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Last month, at the AIDS meeting in Bangkok, she made her mark again. Not only was she the only congressional representative at the meeting, she presented a bill – the New U.S. Global HIV Prevention Strategy to Address the Needs of Women and Girls Act – that seeks to eradicate the U.S. administration's abstinence-only approach to AIDS.

"Once again, I believe we have isolated ourselves from the global community," Lee said, in a phone interview from Bangkok, referring to the maverick championing of abstinence-only programs by the United States at a time when the country is also fighting a war in Iraq for which there is little international support.

When Congress approved the first $2.4 billion of the president's $15 billion five-year pledge for AIDS relief worldwide earlier this year, it included an amendment dedicating 33 percent of prevention funds for abstinence-only programs.

Lee's bill would reverse that requirement and instead steer funds toward comprehensive sex education, domestic-violence prevention and economic empowerment. The bill also pushes access to condoms as a key way of helping women and girls protect themselves from HIV.

"We recognize that condoms are the only [preventive] technology available right now to deal with the pandemic," Lee said. "The Bush administration doesn't seem to understand this."

Women's Vulnerability

According to the text of the bill, "women and girls are often powerless to abstain from sex, endure their partner's faithfulness or to insist on condom use even within marriage, especially in the case of early or child marriages."

More women are becoming infected with HIV in the United States and worldwide. In Sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 25 million of the 38 million infections worldwide, women and girls make up 60 percent of those with HIV.

"The face of HIV/AIDS is now that of a woman, and a young woman at that," said Terri Bartlett, vice president of public policy for the Washington, D.C.-based Population Action International. "Barbara Lee understands that we're not going to win this without more condoms."

Lee, co-chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Global AIDS Task Force, is an author of many bills on the pandemic. Her district of Oakland is one of the hardest-hit in the country and most of those afflicted are African Americans. In 1998, the same year Lee was elected to the House, Oakland's Alameda County was the first in the nation to declare a state of emergency on HIV/AIDS among African Americans.

Health officials estimate that at least 7,000 people may be infected in the county, most in Oakland. African-American women are the fastest-growing group being infected in Oakland, with half of transmissions occurring through heterosexual sex.

State of Emergency

Lee secured $5 million for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in Alameda County shortly after the state of emergency was declared. Still, local health officials say current resources are not enough to deal with the crisis.

Lee proposes the United States provide more female and male condoms. In 2002, donor countries only gave 12 million female condoms – a polyurethane sheath that lines the entire vagina and protects from sexually transmitted diseases – to countries in need. And only one-quarter of male condoms needed worldwide are being supplied, according to Population Action International. The group estimates that 12 billion male condoms are needed.

"We need to assist women to be able to negotiate their own lives so they can be less at risk," Lee said. "We need a comprehensive approach to deal with every aspect – treatment, education, violence against women and access to female condoms and other contraceptives."

Rebecca Vesely is a San Francisco Bay Area writer.

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