Adult Circumcision Campaign Fails
in AIDS-Plagued Swaziland.
U.S. effort doesn't go over well in the country with the
highest HIV infection rate in the world.
In July 2011, King Mswati III stood before an audience of 3,000 people and declared, ''Soka Uncobe must be the motto now for all men to go for male circumcision.''
At a working men’s bar in a down-at-the-heel part of town, a group of labourers are ordering a round after a long day when the talk turns to the uncomfortable subject of adult male circumcision.
The procedure is being carried out as part of a campaign to reduce the spread of HIV here in this tiny kingdom in southern Africa, which has the world’s highest prevalence rate for the AIDS virus.
In an ambitious goal – some would say audacious – the United States wants to accelerate the pace of male circumcisions to support 4.7 million procedures in the developing world by the end of next year, up from 1 million at the beginning of this year.
But its failures in Swaziland have given everyone – even the US global AIDS Ambassador Eric Goosby – great pause whether that goal announced by President Obama* can be reached.
* U.S. President Obama condones circumcision. (What chance has the U.S. got, then?)
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