SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
In the heat of a late September day in Mozambique, southern Africa, we started filming a meeting of young charity volunteers. They had poured heart and soul into an ambitious project aimed at combating HIV and spreading a message about contraception in the province of Gaza.
Then, out of the blue, and as our cameras rolled, came an unexpected announcement: the volunteers' work was to end because of a new policy from the United States.
Under US President Donald Trump's "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance" policy, any foreign aid organisation that wants US funds cannot "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in foreign countries".
Sebastiao Muthisse from AMODEFA, the Mozambican Association for Family Development, outlined the dilemma the aid organisation faced. They were not prepared to sign Trump's so-called 'global gag rule 'forbidding mention of abortion, and, as a result, projects had to close. For the youngsters it appeared to make no sense. Surely lack of advice on family planning would lead to unwanted pregnancies? Why should they be censored when it came to speaking about abortion?
AMODEFA, a member association of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, has worked in Mozambique since 1989. Now, the stance both organisations have taken on the Trump rule means they face losing millions of dollars in US aid, and for AMODEFA in Mozambique two-thirds of their total budget, a sum of $2m.
It's led to hard decisions, particularly when it comes to critical work on HIV prevention.
In a suburb of the capital Maputo, we met Palmira Tembe. Members of Palmira's family have died; five grandchildren are now dependent on her, along with her 13 year-old-son Nelson.
AMODEFA has received funds to help people like Palmira disclose to their families that they have HIV, and to support their care. Palmira told us that prior to the charity's involvement she couldn't tell her son Nelson why he was sick. Now both take HIV medicine together.
We will have generations that are sick without knowing what they have – they will run the risk of transmitting HIV to other people because they do not know their HIV status. In a country where it's estimated that up to 13 percent of people aged between 15 and 49 live with HIV, the support of organisations like AMODEFA can be a lifeline. But the work AMODEFA does with families like Palmira's is under threat, due to their refusal to sign up to the Trump policy.
Project leader Dr Marcelo Kantu is concerned about the future. "We will have generations that are sick without knowing what they have - they will run the risk of transmitting HIV to other people because they do not know their HIV status," he told us.
Visiting those supported by charity work in Mozambique, there was a recurring question: With the heavy price organisations could pay for defying the new US policy, why not forget about the abortion issue, sign up to the Trump rule, and keep American aid money?
Activists and charity workers told us it was not only about upholding a principle of choice, it was about free speech and a law introduced in Mozambique to save lives.
Mozambique liberalised its law on abortion in 2014, not least due to the high numbers of maternal deaths from illegal terminations. Since then, abortion is a legal option up until 12 weeks of pregnancy, and in cases of rape or incest during the first 16 weeks.
But there is Mozambique's new law on the one hand, and the Trump policy on the other.
It has long been understood that aid donations are sometimes an integral part of foreign policy; aid can be given in the hope that the recipient will favour the donor further along the line, perhaps with trade agreements or regional political support.
But is this a case of the donor wanting to influence a law that has been passed by a democratically elected government? Should aid be used as a way of dictating 'democracy' to follow the donor's views rather than allowing each democratic nation to evolve into the nation that its own citizens want?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Sunday December 10 2017, @06:50AM (1 child)
But there's also a hilarious blind spot.
You describe a system that mechanically sucks in, chews up, and spits out males. And you ascribe it to male domination.
Do you think you live in a patriarchy? Take off your blinders for a moment.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday December 10 2017, @04:39PM
That seeming contradiction is easily resolved. To have large harems, there has to be a lot more women than men, and what better way to create that state of affairs than war? You can forget about brotherhood, this is the men who have it all killing off their fellow men to remove competition and ensure they keep it all. That is most easily done to the young, while they are still learning and figuring out what life is all about, and are still too trusting.
Even the patriarchs' own sons aren't always exempt. If they have many sons, they may favor a few and push the rest away. But mostly, they do try to save their sons. Like, George W. Bush got a comparatively safe and even cushy assignment to the National Guard, while his peers fought in Vietnam. Those the patriarchs can't fool are bribed with admittance to the club. Or they are silenced by exiling or imprisoning them. If that doesn't work, well, accidents happen, wink, wink.
No, we don't live in a patriarchy. The closest the US came to that was the Confederacy. On one level, Confederate soldiers deserved to be shot. They sucked up Southern propaganda, committed treason against the US for an unworthy cause, slavery, and made themselves the useful idiots that the slave owning patriarchs ruthlessly exploited. On another, they deserve pity for being duped. The Civil War still burns a little even today, and we still have plenty of would-be patriarchs among us.