(MUSICAL INTRODUCTION)

CYRUS BROACHA: Welcome to Staying-Alive, an MTV Global Forum on HIV & AIDS coming to you from the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona. Every day 6,000 young people are being infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, young people just like you and me. What are we going to do about that? Are we doing enough? How do we fight and win this battle against this dreaded monster, AIDS? We’ll find out right now by asking, hopefully, the right questions to the right people.

Now, we’ve got a very distinguished panel, and I mean big people on this panel. We’ve got the big man, himself. I had to use a lot of pull to get him here, but he’s here. Mr. Bill Clinton, President of the USA, or ex-President that is. We’ve also got some other very distinguished people who are experts in their fields. Peter Piot who is the Executive Director of UNAIDS, an expert who will tell us everything. We’ve got Rupert Everet, and we’ve also got the Archbishop from Nairobi, Raphael Andingi (Misspelled?). So, they are all going to have something to say. But before we do that, it’s a very serious situation. Let’s see exactly where we stand 20 years on the subject of AIDS.

(MUSIC IN BACKGROUND)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. It attacks the immune system in the body. Over time, the immune system is broken down to the point where it can no longer fight off infections. At this stage, the person starts to get sick and is said to have developed AIDS. Forty million people are living with HIV and more than 8,000 people die of AIDS every day. There are over 14,000 new HIV infections daily and more than half of these occur among 15 to 25 year olds. Over 80 percent of HIV infections occur during sex between men and women. By the year 2020, more than 80 million people will have died of AIDS. There is no cure for AIDS.

(MUSIC ENDS)

CYRUS BROACHA: Okay, we’ve got some good news and some bad news, folks. The good news, of course, touching, kissing, hugging not such a big deal. You can’t get the infection through that, but unsafe sex, unprotected sex, sex without a condom, now that could be a real killer in more ways than one. In fact, we have a first-hand report here from Pamela. Pamela from Kenya is going to tell us why and how you not using a condom can be perilous. Pamela?

PAMELA: Last year, my sister died of AIDS and it was quite traumatic because she didn’t know how to protect herself. In Kenya, when you develop full-blown AIDS, you are taken home and then you have to have home-based care and it was quite painful to have--to see her wasting away. The church is very powerful in Kenya. It’s--condoms and sex education, and I believe her life could have been saved if she knew how to protect herself. So, my question is to the Archbishop of Kenya, when is the church going to act to the wake-up call and empower the youth to protect themselves? Do we--do we have to lose the present generation of young people before the church can open their eyes?

CYRUS BROACHA: Okay, Pamela, so what you are saying very quickly to summarize, is that if your sister knew about sex education, in the sense, knew about using a condom, this may not have happened?

PAMELA: Yes, she could have known how to protect herself, yeah.

CYRUS BROACHA: And the church is primarily responsible for people not using a condom?

PAMELA: Yes.

CYRUS BROACHA: Okay, so as far as Kenya goes, this is true. Archbishop, sir, the ball is in your court.

ARCHBISHOP: The Canterbury Church maintains that abstinence is the only guarantee against HIV/AIDS. It costs us nothing. It has no side effects. It is affordable.

CYRUS BROACHA: A very interesting point, I think the Archbishop is very rigid at that moment in what he is saying. What do you have to say?

LYDIAH: I am also from Kenya and Archbishop I’d like to ask you, what do you find more immoral, that young people are using condoms to have sex, or that 8,000 people are being infected every day with HIV, 8,000 people who you have access to on a weekly basis in the sermons and you do not inform them how to protect themselves?

CYRUS BROACHA: Archbishop, sir, your response?

ARCHBISHOP: Oftentimes, our young people use condoms and the influence of drink, alcohol, and many times they forget to use their condoms.

CYRUS BROACHA: All right, Archbishop is --.

ARCHBISHOP: --And some of the condoms are defective.

CYRUS BROACHA: Look, what about the loss of life, Archbishop, if you don’t mind me saying, loss of life just because they aren’t using condoms. Let’s face the fact that people have sex and after so many years it’s impossible to stop them.

ARCHBISHOP: Let me answer that question related to Kenya’s situation. The government and church with the past group to do a change of the government to presence of HIV/AIDS, and for over ten years they did nothing. It turned out that everything was so bad they declared AIDS a national disaster about two years ago.

CYRUS BROACHA: Okay, but without taking any moral tone, we just want to know what you think, that this is the right way, because abstinence is an ideal thing that doesn’t really happen.

ARCHBISHOP: Abstinence we maintain -- nobody ever dies of abstinence.

CYRUS BROACHA: All right, but people do die because they don’t use condoms. Raul, what do you have to say?

RAUL: It’s not about judging beliefs. It’s about the facts. (Unintelligible) people are having sex, also people with HIV, at least I am. Inform people and support people, so that they can make their own responsible choices. Stop judging.

ARCHBISHOP: We are--we make no judgment on anybody. We put what we believe to be the truth before the people and they make their own judgments upon their conscious, and that we respect.

CYRUS BROACHA: All right, Archbishop, sorry to rush you there, but Gabriel has something to say that’s very important.

GABRIEL: Hi, I think that this gives us the opportunity to reflect a lot about how sometimes a culture or values are damaging people’s health, and the position of certain sectors of the Orthodox Catholic church are actually putting young people’s life in danger because they don’t promote us to be responsible about their choices and to have access to information and also to have access to services. I think that if we are going to act in any way, we have to have as part of our action, human rights, and human rights protects our health, our well being, our development. And if you don’t take that into consideration to our cultural diversity and policies and actions, you will always be missing that part of the human spirit that is to really try to keep us alive and to keep us participating and to be aware. I think it’s alright to use condoms.

CYRUS BROACHA: I’m really sorry, but Catherine has to finish up on this as well. Catherine, after you?

CATHERINE: Well, I just wanted to go back on what you had said about the church not giving judgment. I’m from a country, Zambia, which is declared a Christian nation, and the church does say that the condom--it’s wrong. Using a condom is sinful. So, that means you are bringing judgment on people saying, “If you use a condom, you are doing something that’s sinful.” And then that way you are encouraging the stigma. Once a person becomes positive, they are now so embarrassed they are not going to out and say, “Oh, I’m positive because the church has said I did something wrong.” That’s why they don’t go out and use condoms.

CYRUS BROACHA: Archbishop, sir, just before we let you come back to that, I’m sorry to barrage you like this, but John is a very tough man. I don’t want to take any action against him. He lifts weights. Where are you going, John?

JOHN: Well, although abstinence is very--is very safe, inside Africa the Catholic Church says that it does not really promote of uses of condoms. Yet, we have a lot young people who are dying almost every day with the virus of HIV. What other options can we introduce in ensuring that we stop the next young person from being infected with the virus?

CYRUS BROACHA: All right, before we hand back, everybody collectively, how many people think a condom is a necessity here? You are young people from different cultures, races. And from the panel as well, as you can see we have two members of the panel. So, no disrespect, Archbishop, everyone’s entitled to their views. That’s why we have this worry of use. Everybody here, all young from different cultures and races, all say we must have the condom.

ARCHBISHOP: Let me answer that question from my own experience. In Kenya, condoms are freely handed out today in institutional studies. Yet, death continues to occur in a large number in these institutions. Where condoms have been allowed and given freely in our country, deaths occur daily, especially young people.

CYRUS BROACHA: All right. Pamela, where have you gone? Pamela, you’ve got to tell us now what you feel. You’re from Kenya. Do you agree with this? We’re tying everything all up together here, everything, all the different voices of, you know, one.

PAMELA: Okay. I agree with the Archbishop about abstinence is good, but I believe that the youth should be given the information they need and be allowed to make their own choices here.

CYRUS BROACHA: So, just a question of our choice as democratic people in a mostly democratically world.

ARCHBISHOP: We put the information before our young people and then they make their choice. We inform the conscience. If one feels this is the only way I must do it before God, we respect that. We don’t condemn anybody.

CYRUS BROACHA: I think--let’s take a look around the world to see whether this is just Africa, which is having trouble with the Church not allowing use of condoms, or does it go to--let’s see, anybody from somewhere else? Okay, where are you from?

ANUSHIA: I’m from Malaysia and Malaysia is an Islamic country. Condoms are available in supermarkets and everywhere. You can buy them, but we are not allowed to advertise or promote the use of condoms, and there are many youth who want to be safe and use condoms, but they are not educated on how to do it. I have a 24-year-old friend who wants to use condoms. He wants to have safe sex, but he is so shy to go out to the supermarket to buy a condom because of the stigma that surrounds usage of condom because he’s Muslim. And I think that’s very bad for young people. You need to educate us to use it. You can’t just give us a choice. You must educate us about making the choice.

CYRUS BROACHA: It shouldn’t be something you’re embarrassed about. Antigene, you have something to say.

ANTIGENE: I’m from the United States and in the United States right now our President Bush is pushing abstinence only until marriage education and it’s not scientifically proven to work. I became infected with HIV when I was 16 years old and I was in school and no one talked to me about HIV. They didn’t talk to me about the fact that I could get HIV, and because I didn’t get the information, that’s why I think I’m infected.

CYRUS BROACHA: Okay, so there you go. Archbishop, I want to get a different perspective. I think Rupert Everett may throw some light on why the condoms are not being used. Maybe there are some other reasons.

RUPERT EVERETT: I have a lot of love and respect for Christianity. I was educated in a monastery, myself, but I’m always bewildered by this constant continuation, this intransigent attitude about safe sex. Where is the Christ-like compassion towards the human condition, the 21st Century reality of the human condition? It just doesn’t seem to come from the Catholic Church. In my own experience, I feel that actually Catholicism is making it--when you are growing up as a homosexual in the Catholic Church, for example, this mechanism of sin and guilt is actually something that drives one towards promiscuity, because in the Catholic Church there’s no middle way. It’s either you’re a sinner or you’re a saint. There’s no middle way and I feel that celibacy is a thing--it hasn’t worked for the priesthood after all.

I don’t see how it’s going to work for the man on the street. It’s hard enough to convince a man on the street to use a condom, let alone to be celibate. I’m not against abstinence. I think it’s a great idea if your head is there, but we have to take into consideration how men are. Most of us men spend a lot of our lives with our brains lodged in the heads of our penises and that’s just a reality, and we have to find a way, I think, of--of changing man’s view about using condoms. This feeling that men sometimes have an invincibility, vis-à-vis safe sex, this feeling that it’s not manly to use a condom. We have to try and find a way to persuade them that, in fact, in a more profound sense it is more manly to protect someone else and yourself. That’s what I think.

CYRUS BROACHA: Okay, so Rupert says, basically, that we men prefer to go into the rain without a raincoat to use a phrase with children watching. What do you think? Do you use condoms? Be honest.

MARC: The truth of the fact is for young people who are sexually active, they know that the condom reduces some of the pressure. I mean that’s a fact and we should not be hiding from the truth. However, what is important is that we--we save, as you said, we try to save ourselves and save our partners. I mean it’s important because the condom reduces our chance of becoming infected. Abstinence is good and all that, but the reality is, we know that young people are having sex because HIV is going up in the 18 to 25 age group and teenage pregnancy is going up. So, let’s face up to reality. Let’s face up to the facts that--be truthful about sex and promote safe sex.

CYRUS BROACHA: Okay, so basically what we’re trying to say here very quickly is the ideal world would be abstinence. That’s not possible. The reality is that we’re not using a condom. We want somewhere in between where we cannot use a condom and still survive. I think we have one more question very quickly from Shoana?

SHOANA: UNAIDS are running a two-year campaign on stigma, discrimination, and human rights, and I’d like to ask Peter, how are you going to--how are you going to work with religious leaders, such as the Archbishop sitting next to you, to help tackle these kinds of issues? And I think that everybody in the audience would like to see you start that process now.

CYRUS BROACHA: Okay, Peter Piot, once again is the Executive Director of UNAIDS. He’s the man who makes the decisions and, hopefully, helps us to an AIDS-free world at some point. Peter?

PETER PIOT: Yes, I wish I made all the decisions and people would follow them. But let’s first look at what the facts are and particularly from countries and communities where HIV has come down, because it’s not all doom and gloom. There are countries today, like Uganda, like Cambodia, Brazil, where today there are less people who have become infected than five years ago, ten years ago. Well, here the principle is that different people need different approaches and that’s why we say, “Let’s look at the alphabet, the Western alphabet” and that starts with A, B and C. And A is Abstinence, B be faithful, and C is condom, and then depending on where you are and in what situation and who you are. And that’s the message we give to everybody, also to governments because the question was, how do you change the laws? And that’s through--and this is why political leadership is so important and that’s why you speaking up is important.

CYRUS BROACHA: Sorry to butt in, Peter, but very quickly can you tell us what we should say to the Archbishop? There seems to be a difference in views here.

PETER PIOT: Well, no, we have--I’ve had many encounters with church leaders. I’ve been in the Vatican in the Retreat with Cardinals and Bishops and we have dialogue. And I said that, you know, we complete the alphabet. If you say A,B, we say C, but what is important is to stick to the science, to the scientific facts. And they say, for example, that condoms do protect, but we have to make sure that it’s good quality condoms, and that in order to fight AIDS, to bring down the number of new infections, you need a set of options. But the Archbishop’s job is a different one from mine, but both our--the responsibility for both of us is to protect lives.

CYRUS BROACHA: Okay.

PETER PIOT: And we are there. We are also in favor of A, B, C because this is a life choice.

CYRUS BROACHA: Sorry, Peter, once again time is our biggest problem. But before we go any further, folks, we’d like to thank Rupert Everet, who’s taking time off to come here -- a wonderful gesture, a big role model for all of us. Also, thank you very much, Archbishop, for coming here. Your views have been listened to, but I think in general, we’re all for the condom and for safe sex for the next generation. Am I right? Yeah-yeah-yeah, we’re getting some energy in the room. So stay where you are, lots more still to come, including a personal friend of mine. I dare say that, Mr. Bill Clinton. Please stay with us.