Color and Flavor Female Condoms

The role of the female condom has for a long time been underplayed in response to HIV/AIDS. Various campaigns have been mounted by advocates to encourage women to accept and appreciate the female condom as a preventive measure from contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

After three days of observations here at the 2008 International AIDS Conference in Mexico, I have noticed that the reason why most women refuse to embrace and use the female condom is this: There has been no recent development regarding the female condom since it was introduced on the market fifteen years ago. No efforts have been made to put up campaigns to make it more attractive and sexy. Most women still feel that the female condom is just a piece of plastic material that is noisy, unattractive and not sexy. I believe these observations are some of the reasons why women will continue to shun the female condom despite its great proven potential to reduce the transmission of HIV.

If one takes a walk to the Global Village or any store worldwide that dispenses male condoms, they will surely agree with me that male condoms sell like hotcakes because of their attractive packaging, coloring and even flavoring. It is, therefore, important that those advocating for the female condom should urgently start adding more color and flavor to their product in order to attract more users. The female condom is a scientifically proven method of protection from HIV, unwanted pregnancies and STIs, so it is time it found it place at par with its male counterpart. This will surely scale down the epidemic that keeps increasing daily.

As I watched a group of women outside the media centre a while ago, I wondered why they have not thought of this all along. Maybe their peaceful chants and campaigns would have been heard even without singing all those songs in favor of the female condom. I hope the discussion hosted by Oxfam International with a panel consisting of Mary Robinson, honorary president of Oxfam International, Farah Karimi, Executive Director Oxfam Novib, Lennarth Hjelmaker, Swedish AIDS ambassador and Gladys Chiwome of Women and AIDS Support Network will address this issue.The more attractive it is, the more women it will attract and, in turn, the more women will protect themselves from HIV.