Nature Medicine | Spoonful of Medicine

Money for a moral stance

Can the US government compel non-governmental organziations (NGOs) to condemn prostitution?

Yes, if those NGOs want to qualify for government funds. That’s the upshot of a ruling on Tuesday by a federal appeals court.

Since 2003, the US has required that to qualify for funds from the $15 billion PEPFAR program for AIDS, nonprofit groups abroad have to explicitly oppose prostitution and sex trafficking.

NGOs say that taking an explicit antiprostitution stance would make it harder for them to work with sex workers, one of the highest risk groups for HIV infection. In 2005, Brazil refused $40 million from the US rather than comply with the requriements.

Even within the US, the law has been controversial and has gone through a long process of rulings and counter-rulings.

In 2005, after the law expanded to include US groups, DKT International, a Washington D.C-based organization, sued the government, arguing that the law violated its free speech rights.

Last year, a lower court agreed and ruled that the law is unconstitutional. But on Tuesday, US Circuit Judge A Raymond Randolph reversed that ruling, saying that the US Congress has authorized the Bush administration to fund these groups “on such terms and conditions as the President may determine.”

What do you think? Are these acceptable strings?

Comments

  1. Report this comment

    Alan Dove said:

    The government frequently places politically-motivated stipulations on funding, and under the current administration, it’s not surpsing that some of those deal with “moral issues” (read: sex). This particular requirement will almost certainly hinder the public health goals of many NGOs, so of course that’s not acceptable.

    The next question is how to fix it, and other than litigation, the leading option is legislation. The newly Democratic Congress should be given an earful about the issue. Americans can contact their Senators through https://senate.gov and their Representative through https://www.house.gov.

  2. Report this comment

    apoorva said:

    Good point, Alan, but realistically, do we think that can happen? This is the President’s AIDS budget to do with as he wishes and reversing the policy would take significant tweaking, no?

  3. Report this comment

    DR. said:

    Any means to end prostitution and the spread of AIDS is great. I agree on that, although I feel that if the government can openly and freely give out large MILLIONS to foriegn countries just for that cause and somewhat ignore the fact that our own children in the US are suffering from lack of funding in the education financial pocketbook.

    It makes one wonder what is more important…the US citizen who pays tax dollars or the international face of our government to the global community.

  4. Report this comment

    Alan Dove said:

    It wouldn’t really take significant tweaking. Congress (especially the House of Representatives) controls the entire government budget. They routinely insert binding stipulations, so a line in the 2007 budget explicitly forbidding the White House from putting words in NGOs mouths would do the trick.

    People forget that Congress is extremely powerful, because it hasn’t exercised much of that power in the past six years.