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Muslim Clerics Oppose Condom Importation in Kenya
MOMBASA, Kenya, July 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - On Wednesday, Kenyan Muslim clerics condemned the government's plans to import and freely distribute hundreds of millions of condoms.
"This is a wrong signal the authorities are sending to our youth about promiscuous sex and it proves that sex, any kind of sex, is cool and tolerable," Kenya's National Council of Imams chairman, Sheikh Ali Shee, told the French news agency AFP, here on Wednesday.
The clerics were reacting to reports that the government plans to import 300 million condoms for free distribution as part of a national strategy to reduce HIV infection among the 15-25 age group by 30 percent in the next four years.
The new policy, expected to be discussed by the Kenyan cabinet, is to be unveiled in the next three weeks, the health ministry's AIDS Control Unit head, Kenneth Chebet, told newspapers.
According to the BBC online service, the plan means each sexually active Kenyan will receive an average of 60 condoms every year. It is not clear what the cost to the government will be.
Chebet defended the condoms acquisition saying that the country's daily economic loss, as a direct result of the killer disease, runs in excess of 200 million Kenyan shillings ($2.56 million).
"This trend has to be stemmed in more ways than one, and condoms play a definitely important role in the fight against the scourge," Chebet said.
But, Shee declared that he was opposed to condom use as it ran the risk of being deviated from its real purpose and turned into ignorant promiscuity.
"Besides, true living within religious morals has never advocated for condoms in marital sexual activity. What has a 15-year-old got to do with a condom?" asked Shee.
The Roman Catholic Church, which Western news agencies say is the biggest congregation in Kenya, is expected to fiercely oppose the new guidelines as well.
In the past, the Kenya Episcopal Conference chairman, Bishop John Njue, has described moves to promote condoms as "another way of promoting promiscuity" and said that condoms "would not prevent AIDS."
Both Muslim and church leaders have repeatedly criticized the plans by asserting that free distribution of condoms would lull people into a false sense of security. They say it is better to campaign against extra-marital sex or to encourage people to be monogamous.
In November 1999, Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi, declared the AIDS scourge a national disaster.
Official figures put the number of Kenyans living with the HIV virus at 2.2 million, with 700 dying daily from AIDS-related complications.
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