Elizabeth Kahurani & Rose N. Oronje
14 March 2008
opinion
Recent evidence shows that in sub-Saharan Africa, adolescents aged 12-14 are normally sexually aware and by age of 15, nearly one in every five girls has had sex. By 18 years, between 40 per cent and 60 per cent of girls are sexually active.
Yet even with such stark reality at hand, the call to provide comprehensive reproductive health information and services to this age group continues to generate controversy. The debate took centre stage in Arusha last December during the launch of findings from a five-year study that was based on personal interviews with nearly 20,000 young people in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda.
Majority of these young people are oriented to sexual activities at a tender age, and often lack comprehensive knowledge on sexual and reproductive health. Once they start engaging in sex, they do not know how to protect themselves from HIV, other STIs and unwanted pregnancies.
Such a situation leaves them vulnerable. It is not surprising then, that half of all new HIV infections worldwide occur among young people aged 15-24. The study recommendations to adopt early mandatory sex education and ensure access to condoms and other reproductive health services by young people were met with a heated debate among scientists, policymakers, programme implementers, donors and journalists at the 5th African Population Conference held December 10-14, 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania.
Parents, including some on the reproductive health front, do not want to acknowledge that their children are sexually active. "A few years ago, I was at the frontline campaigning for the introduction of sex education in schools. Now that my 10-year-old boy is approaching adolescence, I cannot even imagine anyone showing him how to use a condom," said one of the participants.
"When you talk of demonstrating how to use condom and starting sex education in schools early, all of us are parents, which parent will accept their 12-year-olds to see condom demonstrations?" asked another.
Undeniably, parents are responsible for safeguarding the wellbeing of their children and cultivating their morals. While maintaining this role, they also need to be flexible so as to accommodate changes as the children grow up and involve them in decisions that affect them.
According to Dr Eliya Zulu, Deputy Director of the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), who presented the main findings of the study, the teenagers expressed concern and said they want to protect themselves from HIV and unplanned pregnancy, but do not know how to go about it.
"Adolescence is a time when changes in sexual behaviour happen very fast. So without comprehensive knowledge, young people face the risk of engaging in sexual activities without protection or without understanding the possible consequences," said Dr Zulu. Apparently, misconception about these issues abound.
"Although 90 per cent of young Africans in the four countries have heard of HIV, in the 15-19 age group, fewer than 40 per cent can both correctly identify ways of preventing the virus and reject common myths about HIV, such as the notion that the virus can be spread via mosquito bites.
Half of the adolescents we talked to thought they couldn't get pregnant if they had sex standing up," he said. Some in the audience were of the view that sex education may encourage promiscuity.
However, about half or more of 12-14-year olds interviewed in the study think sex education will not encourage them to have sex, and this is in tandem with other studies which have shown that sex education either delays onset of sexual activities among adolescents or does not have impact on the timing of first sex. On the contrary, danger exists when adolescents lack the knowledge.
With the majority of adolescents preferring to get information about contraceptive methods, HIV and other STIs from teachers, healthcare providers or the mass media, parents feel left out and ignored in the whole process.
Some in the audience raised concern and voiced that using the family unit to protect the youth from such health risks is crucial and the role of the family and parents should be well reflected in such studies. It was however noted that while there is need to reinforce parent-child communication, discussing the subject with their children may be met with resistance because of cultural factors.
Overall, participants acknowledged the need to empower teenagers with the needed information because whether we tell them or not, they experience sexual feelings as they are sexual beings, and if they are not told, they will get information on how to go about it from wrong and misleading sources.
Elizabeth Kahurani and Rose N. Oronje are communication specialists at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC)
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