BBC quits HIV
prevention campaign over U.S. policy

The BBC World Service Trust has abandoned an HIV prevention project it conducts in Tanzania with U.S. AIDS funds rather than comply with a U.S. directive requiring all agencies receiving U.S. funds to sign a pledge opposing sex work, The Guardian reports. The trust had received a $4 million grant from USAID to produce radio programs, public service announcements, and telephone hotlines to promote HIV awareness and safer sex in the African nation. But the Bush administration now requires all recipients of U.S. funds to sign a pledge opposing sex work and sex trafficking, a move the BBC trust says could have hampered its work in Africa.

Trust officials say the pledge would have required them to portray sex workers in a negative light in their radio programs and public service announcements and that they were unwilling to do so. They also say had they signed the pledge, they would have been required to promote abstinence and to highlight the failure rates of condoms in protecting against HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

The trust is now looking for other agencies to support their HIV prevention efforts in Africa. (Advocate.com)