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06/29/2004:

"Focus on sex education - an antidote to HIV/AIDS"

JOHANNESBURG, 29 Jun 2004 (IRIN) - What most parents would not wish to know is that the age of their children's first sexual encounter is getting younger, and with it the risk of HIV infection.

In Swaziland, nearly one-third of young people in secondary school have had sex by age 16, according to the UN Population Fund. In Zambia, when looking at teenage girls alone, that figure rises to nearly half of those questioned.

The consequences can be shocking. A major survey of South African youth conducted by the University of Witwatersrand's Reproductive Health Research Unit, found that one in every 10 South Africans aged between 15 and 24 was HIV-positive, the vast majority of them young women, many of whom were coerced into their first sexual encounter.
Full Article : irinnews.org