TODAY'S EXTRACT IS FROM THE EDITORIAL PUBLISHED A YEAR AGO, OCTOBER 13, 2003:
In a country where 'nuff gal' is evidence of both personal and national progress, perhaps we ought not to be unduly shocked by the findings of a recent survey by the University of the West Indies medical students on the sexual behaviour of our children. We remind readers that childhood, by United Nations' definition, extends to age 18 years. The findings of the researchers, disturbing as they are, are really not new but are closely similar to the results of a survey carried out by the Ministry of Health three years ago.
The average age of first sex is 14, boys between 14 and 18 in 13 high schools across three parishes have an average of four sexual partners with a high of 20 reported.
The widespread failure to apply knowledge of safer sex for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections sets off alarm bells. HIV/AIDS is already a public health crisis with the Caribbean bearing the second highest rate of infection outside of devastated Africa. Over 70 per cent of children in the survey acknowledged that they had knowledge of reproduction, STIs, HIV/AIDS and contraception, and up to 90 per cent identified the condom as a means of protection. Knowledge is not the problem.
Linked to a reckless, daredevil attitude about everything is a major national condomphobia. Men (and boys) must ride bareback and women (and girls) are too cowed, or too loving, to say no to sex and no to no condom.
