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 Around Sweethearts’ Day, the Health Ministry sent 800,000
postcards by mail with a little souvenir: a rubber.
The government has been distributing 200 million free
condoms a year and it intends to triple the number
of condoms used in the country.
By Alessandra Dalevi
Brazilian authorities have found an unlikely ally in its fight against AIDS: the
pornographic film industry. Studs are placing condoms before the action and wearing them
during the action and thanks to a new federal law, every porno video movie rented and sold
in Brazil must now carry this message at the start of the tape: "Make safe sex. Wear
a condom." Law 10.237/01 signed by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso in June was
introduced five years ago by Representative Fernando Gonçalves, who is also a doctor.
The new legislation was published in the Diário Oficial, making it the law of
the nation, just a few days after the celebration of National Day of the Condom (Dia
Nacional da Camisinha) which coincides with Sweethearts’ Day (Dia dos Namorados),
June 12, the Brazilian version of Valentine’s Day. The newly picked date was observed
for the first time this year suggested by the NGO Associação Vida Positiva (Positive
Life Association) and Associação dos Artistas Plásticos de Colagem (Association of
Plastic Artists of Collage). The idea is to link notion of love and sex and the use of
rubber. In São Paulo the day was remembered with an exhibition of 36 paintings related to
love, prevention and AIDS.
The Brazilian Health Ministry is betting that their project Social Marketing of the
Prophylactic will make the use of condoms more widespread. With a population of 170
million, Brazil today uses only 600 million condoms a year. Contributing to this are the
price of the product and the difficulty of findings condoms, which now can only be bought
in pharmacies and drugstores.
The government plan includes cutting the price of condoms by half, increasing
availability of the product, and making easier the process of importing condoms since the
national industry is not able to adequately attend the domestic market. Around
Sweethearts’ Day, the Health Ministry sent 800,000 postcards by mail with a little
souvenir: a rubber. The government has been distributing 200 million free condoms a year
and it intends to triple the number of condoms used in the country. That would mean 1.8
billion rubbers.
Carnaval time has been used in recent years for condom and AIDS awareness campaigns by
the Health Ministry. This year 20 million condoms were distributed for free by the federal
government during the four-day celebrations, double the amount of rubbers —or camisinhas
(little shirts) as they are called in Brazil- distributed in the 1999 Carnaval. Three
million of these were given away in Rio. Four million others were distributed in São
Paulo. The Health ministry also gave away 10 million condom-shaped masks that doubled as
fans to beat the heat so that "condoms are on people’s minds," as pointed
by Health ministry José Serra.
Brazil’s open attitude toward sex has been useful in the battle against AIDS and
the country is being presented by the UN and other world organizations as an example on
how to deal with the disease in developing countries. Regulating the way porno movies are
marketed is just another piece of proof that Brazilian authorities will stop at nothing to
prevent the spread of AIDS. Another one was the decision to produce their own generic
anti-AIDS drugs when the international labs wouldn’t lower their prices for the
products at the risk of enraging the pharmaceutical lobby in Washington and the White
House, which has complained to the World Trade Organization. This aggressive policy,
however, allowed the country to cut deaths from AIDS by 60 percent. Brazil is the only
country in the developing world that offers free anti-AIDS for whoever needs it.
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