In a desperate attempt to curb expansion of HIV and AIDS in the Malawian society, Muslim traditional leaders have demanded a ban on condom use for unmarried people, arguing it was fueling the spread of the pandemic in the secular, but diverse religious southern African nation.
“Islam has always been against use of condoms outside the confines of marriage,” Dr. Imran Shareef, Secretary General of the country’s supreme Muslim body, Ulama Council of Malawi, told OnIslam.net.
“We allow condoms to be used only for discordant couples and in situations, where a mother is breast feeding for about 2 years, but other than that, we are totally against it. Its ban would save the next generation of this country from further peril.”
Dr Shareef was commenting on the recent debates the surrounded the use of condoms in Malawi.
The debates erupted after a group of Muslim traditional leaders from the predominantly Muslim south stunned activists of HIV and AIDs recently during a public debate on gender, HIV and AIDS organized by the country’s Network of AIDs Service Organizations (MANASO).
“As traditional leaders, we have noted with grave concern at the rate we are losing young men and women who could have been productive citizens of our country due to the pandemic. Our observation is that condoms are fueling HIV and AIDs,” an influential Senior Chief Kadewere told the debate.
“If government could ban them and declare that anyone unmarried found using it, should face the law. This could help curb the spread of this deadly disease.”
Kadewere added: “Unmarried people are having sex for fun because there are condoms. But if you observe in Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia where condoms are banned, the HIV and AIDS prevalence rate is very low. People are using condoms here, when they sleep with strangers, but when they get to know each other, they stop using them.
“If these were banned, people could be afraid to be promiscuous, because they would doubt each other’s statuses. If there are people who can abstain they will start practicing abstinence when the condoms are outlawed. Abstinence was the only powerful tool among unmarried people that would help minimize the rate at which the pandemic is being spread and nothing else.”
Concurring with Kadewere, Senior Chief Likoswe said in the past, it was possible for children to heed abstinence messages from their parents “but that has been eroded by the social marketing of condoms.”
“We had ‘condoms’ before and they were in form of a message that a boys and girls should stay away from each other. This worked wonders during that time, but that’s gone.”
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