February 7 -14, 2011 is Safer Sex Week in Jamaica. With the fluctuating but fairly steady increase in teenage pregnancies across the island and the worryingly persistent increase in HIV infections between 1999-2009 (21% or 1436 cases), there is no doubt that Jamaica could certainly benefit from this campaign. Disappointly, however, this is not the first time that such a campaign is being undertaken. Unfortunately, the story always unfolds the same way and it ends frustratingly with the characteristically anti-climatic curtain call.

Like many initiatives in Jamaica, the objective behind Safer Sex Week is most noble and commendable. However, the institutional disjoint with which this country is faced, which is evidenced by the lack of the right collaborations in the appropriate Ministries, coupled with the lack of results-oriented precision with which these tasks are executed lead one to wonder whether the Ministry of Health has got it right this time. “Protect Your Love, Use a Glove” is the brand for this week’s Safer Sex campaign but with the incongruent increases in HIV infections it begs the obvious questions: Are we preaching to the right audience? Why do these attempts, if only in the grand scheme of things, seem somewhat futile?

There is certainly no dearth of public statistics on the nuances of HIV/AIDS in Jamaica. Strikingly, however, the research data that is available to the public at least seem not to be sufficient enough to gauge the targeted intervention that is required to combat the spread of this disease. Certainly, if the contrary were true, there would be no guessing that for Jamaica to have commendable reductions in new HIV infections such as countries like Uganda, it must concentrate its prevention mechanisms at the grass-root levels by going into communities most desiring of these services and by using the right people to champion this cause.

It is clear that there has to be something fundamentally wrong with our campaign strategies if we still have imbeciles who believe that having sex with a virgin will cure HIV and AIDS. I am certainly not advocating that we undertake the impossible task of trying to set up a foolproof system. I am suggesting on the contrary that we reassess whether we are reaching our targeted audience in general and during Safer Sex Week in particular and if in fact we are, whether we need to reconsider our methodologies and approaches.

Finally, the HIV/AIDS epidemic needs to be considered in its proper context. Most of our national objectives will probably not be met if discrimination and stigma continue to abound in its present undesirable form being in parts largely nourished by certain aspects of our culture. We must nonetheless continue to educate our people on a much wider scale with a more encapsulating and precise penetration of HIV and STI prevention programmes which will produce measurable outcomes. Safer Sex Week should not be just one of the noble things to do in the national fight against HIV/AIDS. It should set objectives which can be reasonably achieved and quantified or can in some other means attest to its utility.

Jermaine Case,
International Youth Speak Out Project
JSTAR Council, JAMAICA