Uganda distributes ‘chastity’ tuition

KITATYA, Uganda – Mousisi Anatolius moved from hut to hut, taking notes in a tattered ledger as he interviewed parents and their young daughters. He was searching for virgins.

“How are you faring? What is your status?” Anatolius, a community leader, gently asked Prossy Naluyombia. A haggard girl of 13, she was one of 11 children living in a dark, mud-floor room with soiled laundry stuffed in the corners.

Several months ago, a Ugandan legislator proposed offering “chastity scholarships” in this poor farming district 150 miles southeast of the capital, Kampala. His hope was that the program, in which proven virgins can attend college at no cost, would encourage girls to resist entreaties from older men offering them money and security in exchange for sex.

Prossy’s mother, Florence Babibye, would love to see her win such a scholarship. This spring, the mother of six took in five orphans whose parents had died from complications of AIDS. As the money for food, clothes and school fees dwindled, so did Prossy’s resolve to stay chaste.

Last week, Prossy was offered a way out. An older man approached her in a secluded area of mango trees and made a proposition. He would take care of her in return for sex, Prossy said.

“I’m thinking about it. Ever since the orphans came, I only own one dress and one knickers,” she told her mother, who anxiously rocked three crying children on her lap. “I want to take a sugar daddy and just go. I need someone to care for me.”

•

For vulnerable girls and young women in many parts of Africa – including those orphaned by AIDS – sex has long been a way out of grinding poverty, overcrowded homes and an uncertain future .

“Here we say sex is a poor girl’s food,” said Anatolius, 43.

Now, however, the sexual behavior of African girls has become a new focus in the war on AIDS. In Uganda, South Africa and other countries, governments are promoting female sexual abstinence before or outside marriage as a primary means of combating the disease, which has ravaged the continent.

Janet Museveni, wife of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, recently organized an abstinence march and attempted to conduct a “virgin census” on the campus of the country’s main university.

“Saving yourself for marriage is the right thing to do,” read government billboards. “Beware of Sugar Daddies!” warn posters in schools.

Sulaiman Madada, the member of parliament who is promoting chastity scholarships, said he hoped the program would reduce the incidence of AIDS in his district and help steer desperate young women away from sexual arrangements that can ruin their lives.

But some critics, including the group Human Rights Watch, assert that the push for abstinence has been motivated by politics, not purity. They charge that Museveni, once a leader in promoting condom use, has shifted to please the Bush administration, which champions abstinence and monogamy to prevent AIDS. Uganda receives $8 million from the United States each year to promote abstinence programs for youth.

Critics also argue that testing for virginity is traumatizing and could stigmatize girls who have been raped. Human rights groups have condemned the practice in some Islamic countries, where unmarried women may be forcibly tested as a form of moral policing. There is no equivalent test for males.

Museveni, in a recent meeting with Washington Post editors and reporters in Washington, said that abstinence was preferable for young people and that condoms were more appropriate for “high-risk” groups such as prostitutes. But many health experts say that because African men often have multiple sex partners, condom use is critical to reducing AIDS.

The virgin scholarship plan has sparked debate within Uganda, too. Some people have raised concerns that virginity tests may be inaccurate and that girls who fail may be ostracized. There are also competing plans by local leaders to buy sewing machines so young girls can earn a living.

Mothers like Babibye say that it isn’t easy for vulnerable young girls to refuse sex and that even they need to know about condoms.

“The girl child suffers so much,” Babibye said. “Saying they have to keep their virginity to get a scholarship is a nice idea, but it seems unfair. I feel bad for the girls and my Prossy. They are just trying to survive.”