Weapon of mass dissent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/opinion/l05kristof.html?
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Condom use is indispensable to President Bush's program to combat AIDS in Africa, and the program should do more, by making available female condoms to empower the women.

As a Nigerian psychiatrist and public-health physician who has worked with Nigerian women, I know that African men will not use condoms, not with prostitutes or girlfriends and definitely not with their wives - who, they believe, are their property.

An average African woman cannot say no to her husband: the consequences are a thorough beating or divorce, and most African women cannot afford divorce. Unlike their Western sisters, they would not be given child support. And with no social welfare services to assist them in caring for their children, they would become destitute. At the same time, their culture would blame them for not holding on to their husbands.

Yes, in Africa, marriage kills.

Kehinde A. Ayeni, M.D.

Farmington Hills, Mich.

March 30, 2005>>

The writer is responding to Nicholas Kristof's NYTimes editorial on March 30 titled "When Marriage Kills." If you want to read that (for free anyway), try Lexis-Nexis.

Otherwise, Kristof's brevity may say everything it needs to: "The stark reality here is that what kills young women here is often not promiscuity, but marriage. Indeed, just about the deadliest thing a woman in southern Africa can do is get married."

# posted by Sqb. @ 4/06/2005 10:15:00 AM