Educating peacekeepers about AIDS.

• Author: Kuhlmann, Tobias

When soldiers from Eritrea put on their uniform belts, they not only carry with them hand grenades, ammunition cases and canteens but, since 2003, also a leather pouch that holds four-pack condoms. With distribution ongoing, these pouches are now standard military issue equipment of the Eritrean Defense Force and thus a weapon against HIV/AIDS, which in the last twenty years has claimed more lives in sub-Saharan Africa than all wars on that continent in the last century.

More than twenty years since the disease was first identified, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said that it has continued to spread not only in Africa but also in many parts of the world, killing some 8,000 people each day, while another 14,000 are infected, adding to some 42 million living with the virus. While the fight against the pandemic is pursued on many levels and in many sectors, efforts in recent years of the United Nations and its Member States have begun to specifically target the role that military and police personnel--the so-called "uniformed services"--play in the spread of the infection. The initial focus will be on peacekeepers. With many of them young and sexually active, often deployed to or from regions with high HIV/AIDS prevalence, and by profession inclined to risky behaviour, some consider the peacekeepers to be "more likely to contract or transmit the virus than the average population", Roxanne Bazergan, HIV/AIDS Policy Adviser with UNAIDS and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), told the UN Chronicle.

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HIV/AIDS deeply affects the life of every individual who contracts it. At the same time, it has broader implications, as it has the potential for destroying entire societies and thereby creating conditions that further facilitate the spread of the virus--reason enough for the UN Security Council to adopt unanimously in 2000 its first-ever resolution dealing with a health issue. In resolution 1308 (2000), the Council called HIV/AIDS a risk to stability and security, expressed concern at its impact on international peacekeeping personnel and called for action against the infection. That call was taken up by the General Assembly in 2001 in its Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, which extended this concern to uniformed services and further specified action to be taken by the United Nations and its Member States.

The use of pouches for condoms as a new standard issue equipment in Eritrea is only one illustration of how the commitments of resolution 1308 and the Declaration can be put into concrete action. Although just a small detail in a broader picture of various approaches pursued by different countries and institutions, this could serve as an example for countries contributing troops and civilian personnel to the UN peacekeeping missions, said Michael Munywoki, HIV/AIDS Policy Officer with the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE). Thus far, these uniform belts only include the more familiar military equipment, but Mr. Munywoki wants to ensure that...