Kenya's condom ads make youths squirm

NAIROBI, Kenya -- In bars, shops, restaurants and homes across Kenya, racy TV ads attempting to encourage condom use are making adults fume and adolescents squirm.

Letters to the editor in the newspapers of this profoundly conservative East African nation -- where an estimated 700 people die every day from AIDS -- complain that the ads encourage promiscuity. They are also showing up, although in less explicit form, in posters and billboards along the highway.

The ads were placed by the non-governmental organization, Population Services International, to promote its heavily subsidized condoms.

"I don't think it has a message, and it's even more embarrassing when you watch it with your parents or young ones around," said James Njunga, a 21-year-old disc jockey.

Throughout the world, those championing condom use often come under fire, especially when they are public personalities like U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell who recently told a questioner on an MTV forum that he favors condom use to prevent the transmission of disease.

The president of the conservative Family Research Council, based in Washington, D.C., called Powell's remarks "reckless and irresponsible."

Abstinence encouraged

Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, 78, admitted last year that talking about such private matters embarrassed him. He suggested that Kenyans abstain from sexual activity "for two years" if they want to avoid contracting AIDS.

Unlike in neighboring Uganda, where an intense public campaign has made inroads into the AIDS epidemic, there is little public evidence in Kenya that anyone is fighting AIDS.

Thus began the aggressive ad campaign for Trust condoms.

In the TV ad, a young woman sitting at a train station is staring at an attractive young stranger who has just removed his shirt to cool off. She drops her plastic water bottle as he approaches.

As she and her girlfriend lick their lips, the young man with dreadlocks picks up the bottle, pulls a condom out of his jeans' pocket, slips it over the bottle and hands it to her with a smile.

"Life is good with Trust condoms" flashes across the TV screen in Kiswahili, the lingua franca of Kenya.

Until the Trust ad campaign, condoms had been most visible in Nairobi when they were being burned by various religious groups, including the Roman Catholic church.

But the American organization, Catholics For A Free Choice, recently placed ads, albeit less explicit ones, in Kenyan newspapers. They read: "Catholic people care. Do our bishops? Banning condoms kills."

Bernard Waithaka of Population Services International, the manufacturers of Trust condoms, said the TV ads target the 20 to 24 age group which is most at risk from the HIV virus that causes AIDS. He said their research shows that 70 percent of the target group is either already infected or at high risk.