Residents 'could be forced to carry condoms'

A Colombian councillor has today outraged local priests by suggesting a law to ensure everyone in his town aged 14 and above carries a condom to prevent pregnancy and disease.

William Pena, a councillor in Tulua, said he will make a formal proposal to force all men and women – even those just visiting – to always carry at least one condom.

Those caught empty-pocketed could pay a fine of €150 or take a safe sex course, he said.

“Sexual relations are going on constantly,” Mr Pena said. “If you carry a condom, chances are you’ll use it during the day. It’s not going to be there forever.”

Tulua has one of the highest rates of AIDS in Colombia, he said. The proposal will be debated by town leaders and could go into effect by March, he said.

Roman Catholic priests in the Cauca Valley town, 150 miles south-west of Bogota, were fuming over the plan.

The Rev Jesus Velasquez said it would only encourage sexual relations and ridiculed it as absurd. The local newspaper El Tiempo today quoted him as saying, “I would have to have a condom even though I’m clergy.”

Another local priest, Roberto Sarmiento, said improved sex education would be a better solution.

“Nobody can force someone to carry a condom in their pocket,” he said. “They should instead carry the responsibility of what sexual relations mean.”

Ramiro Cano, a 19-year-old labourer in Tulua, said today the proposal was the talk of the town, and added that most young people he had talked to supported it.

“I try to always carry a condom on me, especially if I go to a discotheque, in case I can pick up someone,” Mr Cano said.

The proposal is perhaps the most radical in a series of pro-condom efforts across a country where 190,000 people live with AIDS, a figure only surpassed in Latin America by Brazil, according to the World Health Organisation.

The capital city of Bogota handed out more than two million free condoms last year as part of a campaign called “Use it instinctively – make yourself sexy.”