Tororo women discourage men from circumcision

By Faustin Odeke

Tororo women are discouraging their husbands from undergoing circumcision, health authorities have disclosed.

Willy Mungoma, the district health educator, said most of the women think their husbands may take long to heal, thereby denying them sex.

“In our routine sensitisation programmes and radio tallkshows, women challenge us to explain how long their husbands would take to heal. This is because they think taking a long time to heal would make them miss sex,” he said.

Mungoma said this during a two-day HIV/AIDS workshop on the National Strategic Policy Dissemination that was organised by the World Vision on Tuesday.

The workshop aimed at sensitising people about safe sexual behaviour in order to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV/AIDS.

Under the National Priority Action Plan, the health ministry targets having 1,250,000 men circumcised by 2013. They also want 3.5 million men counseled and tested for HIV/AIDS.

In Tororo, safe male circumcision is done at Tororo Hospital every Tuesday and Thursday.

The district chairman, Emmanuel Osuna, said some of the circumcised men were being promiscuous, a trend that increases the number of new infections since circumcision provides only about 60% protection.

He appealed to leaders in the district to sensitise and mobilise men for HIV testing and circumcision.

He urged parents to support the education of their children, saying this would eliminate early marriages and prevent them from engaging in sex before they are 18.

Participants recommended that health centres start encouraging the distribution of condoms to pupils and students who may need them. This Ministry of Education and Sports banned the distribution of condoms in schools.