My experience as a condom logistics officer

Condoms are not fit to be mentioned among Christians. People who use condoms have multiple sex partners and indulge in all forms of sexual immorality. In the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria, this is the traditional view.

Presbyterian Aids Action runs a project on HIV/Aids intervention among religious institutions in five southeastern states in Nigeria.

We cannot do our work if we do not mention condoms. We have to do what is frowned on by the church and risk disciplinary action.

In the beginning, we concentrated on promoting mutual fidelity and abstinence, but some of our church members asked us if there were other ways to preventing sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs) and HIV infection. We soon discovered that the most pragmatic course of action was also to teach those members who needed it how to use condoms. This group of people were introduced to condom use. They were however cautioned that condoms would not provide 100% protection against HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases.

We see the use of condoms (as a preventive tool) as a means to an end. The aim in introducing some church members to condoms is to counsel them in order to bring them to either mutual fidelity or abstinence. Our assumption is that it is difficult to ask someone who is already enjoying premarital or extramarital sex suddenly to stop. If that person is introduced to condoms, he or she can be brought back to accepted Christian behaviour. And this has worked for us, especially with our youth clients.

The news that Presbyterian Aids Action is teaching church members how to use condoms has spread. This has not gone down well with many church leaders and members. We have been accused of promoting promiscuity within the church, especially among the youth. Our response is always to confront them with facts and figures. Recently in one of our peer education workshops among the church youth, we asked whether any of them had ever used a condom: 75% said yes. How can you ask such people suddenly to start abstaining?

In the course of educating church members about HIV and STI prevention, we had to build the capacity of our peer educators to use condoms as a means of preventing infection. This is in addition to mutual fidelity for the married and abstinence for the unmarried.

Recently my project manager, Rev Iro, was invited to deliver a paper on the role of Presbyterian church ministers in HIV/Aids and STI prevention and care and was again questioned about condoms. He presented our practical experience among church youth but also underlined that it is not only those who have multiple sex partners who use condoms. Condoms can serve as a means of family planning. Infected couples can use them to avoid reinfecting themselves. For discordant couples (where one of the partners is HIV positive and the other is not), condom use is mandatory.

Since then, the number of church ministers and members coming to our office to look for condoms has increased. If you come to my office and hear anybody asking for a ''cap" or "raincoat'', know that he or she is asking for condoms.

My experience as a condom logistics officer in the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria has been quite exciting. Condoms are still not 100% acceptable as a means of HIV and STI prevention, but acceptance is growing, despite formidable opposition from some church leaders.

Nnennaya Onyike, Presbyterian Church of Nigeria