With all undue respect, MrBacon, I've actually done medical missionary work in Third World countries, and your "first hand knowledge" must be compared with the facts gathered by those who have been there and gathered the facts themselves.
Africa suffers from 1)female genital mutilation, as well as 2) a very high rate of culturally accepted prostitution and all the other things mentioned by posters in this thread, including 3)preference for "dry sex" (African men, in fact prefer it, because they think its more stimulating. Women actually use things like laundry detergent to remain "dry" for their mates), 4)highly promiscuous heterosexual sex, 5)preference for anal sex due to female genital mutilation.
This all lead, in the years before AIDS, to very high levels of STDs in general.
Thus the men who paid for prostitutes, their prostitutes themselves, their wives, the multiple sex partners, etc (all well documented, culturally accepted behaviors in much of Africa) all went to the local HEALTH CLINIC for a shot in the behind of cheap anti--biotics, which for many years (before antibiotic resisent strains of STDs emerged) cleared up the rampant STDs.
It is also well know that these clinics are chronically underfunded, and that they have reused needles for injections routinely for decades now.
It is also well know that these same clinics, which are chronically underfunded for routine health concerns, are overflowing with population control money, drugs, and devices.
According to Dr. Stephen Karanja, the former Secretary of the Kenyan Medical Association, “Thousands of the Kenyan people will die of malaria whose treatment costs a few cents, in health facilities whose stores are stacked to the roof with millions of dollars worth of pills, IUDs, Norplant, Depo-Provera, most of which are supplied with American money.”(3)
I can tell you from my own experience in medical missionary work in Haiti that this is absolutely and irrefutably true!
So the important point of the article is that, while millions are spent supplying these countries with contraceptive/abortifacient drugs, devices, and paraphernalia, very little is actually spent on health care.
So in effect, the superabundance of contraceptives/abortifacients (along with the well known fact that acceptance of contraceptives/abortifacients increases dangerous sexual behavior), combined with the scarcity of clean needles/sterilization equipment/procedures/medicines/antibiotics, has played a decisive role in causing this AIDS epidemic to explode among women.
There is certainly validity to the authors's point,
"Women and girls account for such a high percentage of HIV/AIDS victims in Africa because they are infected during procedures designed to disable their reproductive systems and prevent them from conceiving or bearing children."
...but the authors over reach in trying to infer that the majority of cases are due to this fact.
However, it is simply irrefutable that
"Up to 70% of HIV infections in Africa, according to a recently published study in the peer-reviewed International Journal of STD and AIDS, occur as a result of substandard health care, primarily HIV transmission through reuse of needles.(4)"
And it is also irrefutable that for every dollar spent on buying sterile needles, multiple dollars are spent on contraceptive/abortifacient drugs, devices, and paraphernalia that would be far better spent on basic health care measures.
This fact alone is the most important issue: Do we in the west engage in Contraceptive Imperialism as solution to Third World Poverty?
NO.
If population is to remain at suportable levels, then the birth rates and death rates must remain in balance. If anything, we should be spending more on birth control and less on fighting disease in most parts of the world, including the United States.
So9