[LadyDoc]

He missed a few problems.

Men in Southern Africa are not circumcized. In the dry season, it is hard to wash. They end up with Balanitis which leads to open sores, and female to male HIV transmission. HIV is much less common in Muslim lands: because the Muslims circumcize their boys at age 13..

Scarification is common. You make a superficial cut and put in an herb for pain control. The ones who do this rarely sterilize the knives.

Scarification is also done to make scars for beauty marks of thick scar tissue, and also for tatoos. Like tatoo parlors, they don't sterilize the knives or needles.

Many self proclaimed healers give shots of penicillin or B12. Poor people may go to them for treatment with herbs or scarification or shots. They don't sterilize needles.

Some mines only have dormitories for men. The men work in the mines or factories in the city, and can't bring their wives along. DUH. OK Guys, how many of you would live in a barracks for 3 to 6 months at a time and not see a hooker. Voila: When he comes home, he gives HIV to his wife and unborn kids.

[Carry_Okie]

Thanks for the infill. It immediately brings one to recall how the message of the colonial missionaries is now so often disparaged as insensitive and condescending.

Still, one wonders if self-determination among such peoples is more punishment than blessing when forced to cohabit with Western cultural and economic hegemony. Some tribes seem to have found their way into a form of cohabitation (the Maasai come to mind). Overall, however, it would seem obvious to all but the poverty pimps that forcible civilization was in some respects, a more compassionate policy than what we are doing now. It's either that or some form of respectful cultural immiscibility.