CARNAL NATION

An African organization that advocates for people with disabilities is demanding that condom packages include instructions and other information in Braille, the system of raised characters that enables the blind to read and write. During a workshop in Zimbabwe, Kudzai Shava of the National Association of Societies for the Care of the Handicapped (NASCOH) expressed great concern that the blind and visually impaired would be "exterminated" because AIDS prevention strategies are not also addressed to the disabled. “We are also sexually active or even more active than able-bodied people and we need the same protection from the Aids scourge,” he told attendants.

Most attendees at the conference agreed that the disabled continue to be treated as non-sexual, objects of pity, or both. It seems that some myths have arisen in some regions of Africa that sex with a disabled person can cure HIV and AIDS. “In some parts of the country, people with disabilities are kept in granaries by relatives while some are abused through the myth that if one is intimate with a person with disability, they will be healed of HIV/AIDS,” Shava said.

Placing Braille on condom packages would allow the visually impaired to more actively engage in safer sex practices, according to NASCOH. In addition to instructions for use, the expiration date in Braille would be extremely important. Often, the blind are sold packages of expired condoms because they cannot read the date printed on the package.