Zimbabwe Prison and Correctional Services deputy Commissioner-General Alfred Dube told a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)-organised workshop on HIV prevention in correctional settings held in Kariba this week that the National Aids Council (Nac) has committed to fund such a survey.

“This is important in that the study will help in giving recommendations and, where possible, intervention to problems in our settings in keeping with evidence based intervention at best practice,” he said.

Dube said MPs should interrogate the issue of same sex relationships bearing in mind the legal framework under which Zimbabwe is operating.

“In our case as Zimbabwe, you may want to agree with me that legislatively, the issue of men having sex with men or women is a criminal offence. At the same time, there is separation of prisons according to gender which automatically entails that providing condoms to inmates during incarceration is tantamount to promotion of homosexuality,” Dube said.

But Prince Dube, the acting chair of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health said the government should re-consider its position to deal with HIV and Aids in prisons. Read more via News Day