1999

The Female Condom in Zimbabwe:
The Interplay of Research, Advocacy, and Government Action

Women and AIDS Support Network (WASN) Takes the Lead

Because of the clear and compelling results of the acceptability study, activists now had promising evidence of the female condom’s potential contribution to HIV prevention and could continue their campaign for its availability in Zimbabwe.

The key organizational force around this campaign was WASN. Founded in 1989 to address the HIV prevention and support needs of women and their families, WASN plays a central educational and advocacy role in Zimbabwe. The NGO operates through a network of relatively autonomous, community-based women’s groups and associations, with constituents drawn from urban, township, and rural women.

It was WASN that first raised the issue of the female condom with the NACP. Because of its strategic involvement in AIDS issues, WASN members participate in various AIDS-related committees coordinated by the NACP, giving the NGO unusual access to decisionmakers in the Ministry of Health and other government agencies. WASN was able to position itself as an authority on the female condom, making presentations on the device to conferences and workshops sponsored by the NACP and other organizations and agencies.

WASN formally broached the issue of the female condom at a meeting to discuss the NACP’s national five-year (1994–1999) strategic plan. Although the NACP expressed interest in the device, its response was that the female condom had to first be approved by the government before it could be included in a policy document. WASN’s leaders then undertook a public campaign to demand the device’s approval, a legal necessity to ensure its commercial availability. They also worked closely with the NACP and UNAIDS to discuss how best to resolve the problem of the device’s high cost and to explore opportunities for subsidies.

The campaign evolved into a multifaceted strategy to build support. An important element was community mobilization, achieved by engaging the women who had participated in the acceptability study to educate other women in rural areas and to encourage them to ask their health providers about the female condom. As word of the device spread throughout communities and within the health system, demand grew from the grassroots that ultimately reached the NACP.

Press coverage was an early catalyst for this growing national discussion. In April 1995, WASN displayed and discussed the female condom at the annual Zimbabwe Trade Fair held in Bulawayo, which led to considerable media attention and numerous interviews with reporters. At the 1995 United Nations Conference on Women held in Beijing, China, Priscilla Misihairabwi, then director of WASN, presented a paper on the female condom that included the findings from the Zimbabwe acceptability study. The Reuters News Agency reported the story around the world, and the coverage generated even more interest in the device in Zimbabwe. After the Reuters article appeared, national media outlets turned to WASN leaders for information and commentary about the female condom. WASN representatives were repeatedly invited for interviews by all four national radio stations and the national television system, appearing on talk shows and phone-in programs. Both local and national magazines and newspapers published articles about the device.

To gain allies and avoid confrontation, WASN characterized the female condom as a product for “monogamous” women placed at risk by their partners, rather than a product for adulterous relationships or premarital sex. This made it difficult for church groups or other antagonists to campaign strongly against the device. Support for the female condom grew among the country’s leadership, and discussion of the device soon entered the political arena. At the national ruling party’s annual assembly in 1996, Deputy Minister of Health Tsungirirai Hungwe addressed the gathering—which included President Robert Mugabe—about the female condom and the need to make it available. Although Minister of Health Dr. Timothy Stamps was initially opposed to the female condom, he soon became a supporter.

To incorporate women’s voices into the campaign, WASN launched a petition drive promoted by an extensive media campaign. It solicited the invaluable support of the community-based women’s groups involved in the acceptability study as well as other women’s organizations—among them, Women in Law and Development in Africa, Women's Action Group (WAG), and the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Center—in circulating the petition at meetings, workshops, and other gatherings. By World AIDS Day (December 1) 1996, 30,000 signatures had been collected.

But even before the petition drive ended, the campaign was victorious. In September 1996, Zimbabwe’s Medical Control Council approved the female condom for use. The focus immediately shifted to development of two complementary distribution systems: within the public sector, at no cost; and a private sector social marketing program subsidized by international donors, to be added on to one that already existed for the male condom. The NACP launched both efforts in July 1997.

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This page updated on
19 Oct 2007