So when it comes to condoms and contraception, let’s face it we’re pretty spoilt. With a multitude of colours, flavours, ribbed, non ribbed, ultra-fine, lubricated, extra strength, shaped for a better fit condoms to choose from and that’s just referring to rubbering up. We also have an unlimited choice of pills, implants, injections, diaphragms, rings at our disposal. Anyway you get my point; contraceptives in the UK are widely accessible, from supermarkets, garages, to vending machines. They are also freely distributed and easy to get hold of in bulk from sexual health clinics, GUM (Genito-Urinary Medicine) clinics and most GPs.

However since coming back from Kenya, I realise that not everyone is quite so privileged when it comes to stocking up their bathroom cupboard with these handy rubber friends. In 2004, ten billion condoms were required in the developing world but only 2.5 billion were available and in Sub-Saharan Africa, each man only had the equivalent of three each.

Ushawuri Mkueli a group of Kenyan Women in the Machakos Province told me that their area “had been out of stock of condoms for 3 months”. Further into the conversation we found out that a local hospital had 5,000 condoms but distribution was practically non-existent and without provided transportation, they would go without. And this is within 60 kilometers of Nairobi. Rural women are even less fortunate; walking for hours to distant clinics and dispensaries, only to be turned away because the facilities don’t have birth control pills. A woman here cannot refuse sex with her husband. Already, more women than men in Sub-Saharan Africa are HIV positive. Women make up 60 per cent of the HIV cases in Kenya. One of the ladies we met here was bold enough to share her personal testimony about becoming HIV positive. She is just one of the women in this group who have stood up and spoken out against the stigma in their area. It is highly likely that she has contracted the disease from her husband however her husband continues to refuse condoms. We will never quite know if this is to do with sexual pleasure, cost, availability or stigma but the lack of availability doesn’t help matters.

With a HIV prevalence of 6.7%, people can’t afford to just go without because when the probability is working this hard against you, you’re playing with fire.

Patricia Hindmarsh, of Marie Stopes International, a London-based international family planning organisation states "Most of the African countries are out of stock. Kenya, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe. It's widespread, there is good information that condoms are rotting in storage and birth-control medicines are out of date."

An outspoken Kenyan gynaecologist, Dr. Solomon Orero, strongly criticises his government emphasising the nature of distribution within the country which he claims is “haphazard and unreliable”, "Forty-one years after independence, Kenya has never budgeted a penny for contraceptives. We have never had the whole range. It is either only pills or injectables or condoms. Family planning is relegated to the background by both providers, policymakers, administrators and even donors. Worse still, our major providers were severely affected by the global gag rule." The unavailability of condoms in Sub-Saharan Africa is also a political battle; the gag rule refers to a policy the US government supported which insisted that money should only go to clinics that worked in support of promoting abstinence over contraception.

Dr Gill Greer, director of International Planned Parenthood Federation, estimated that the gag rule had amounted to 36 million unplanned pregnancies and 15 million induced abortions.The gag rule “has done immense harm and caused untold suffering to millions around the world," she said in a statement. "It has undermined health systems and endangered the lives and health of the poorest and most vulnerable women on the planet by denying access to life saving family planning, sexual and reproductive health and HIV services and exposing them to the dangers of unsafe abortion."

"We are facing a disaster," says David Adriance, a Nairobi-based health care worker with EngenderHealth, a U.S.-based organization that provides reproductive health care services for the world's poorest women. "We have the largest cohort of young people that the world has ever known. These kids are hitting reproductive age and we have nothing in place for them. No sex education. No contraception. Few services.” The stigma associated with using condoms is very prevalent in Kenya; recent research shows that youth are engaging in unprotected sex because of the stigma and embarrassment associated with buying condoms, one-fourth also equate the use of condoms with a lack of trust, ironic considering that Kenya’s most famous condom brand is named ‘Trust’.


However we've seen that a large percentage of people are not able to stroll hand-in-hand to their local roadside shop and pick up a packet of condoms. They might not have any for a start and you might not be able to afford them for seconds. If you're lucky enough to get your hands on a few bob and find a condom, you might have to contend with a partner refusing to use it.

Safe sex all of a sudden seems a pretty novel privilege doesn’t it…?

Words & Photo: Holly Davis