| Written by Joshua Tan,
on Wednesday, 30 September 2009
|
Published in : Outreach, Community |
  If you’ve kept up with the news lately, you’d notice an awful lot of sex around. Take for instance crime statistics released in Aug showing more Singaporean girls under 14 are having sex, and you might begin to see a problem.
In recent years, attitudes against underage and premarital sex have taken on the form of campaigns for safe sex, but recent survey results unveiled at yesterday’s World Contraception Day press conference suggests that youths of today hardly know about contraception in the first place.
Funded by pharmaceutical company Bayer Schering Pharma, the study involved almost 4,000 youths aged between 15 and 24 from 18 countries across the world, including 200 aged 16 to 19 from Singapore.
Describing results he called “very scary”, the survey findings were presented by Ary Laufer, the regional director of Marie Stopes International, to local and regional media.
Worrying attitudes
Survey results show that 49 per cent of youths surveyed indicated they have already had unprotected sex, 41 per cent did not talk about contraception with their partners before sex for the first time, and 57 per cent are not talking to their partners about contraception before having sex.
In addition, 58 per cent of participants were either unfamiliar with the available contraceptive methods or are “confused and unaware of the appropriate options”, and displayed belief in unreliable contraceptive methods, such as the withdrawal method.
Heavy statistics aside, Mr Laufer admitted that “people are having sex and they’re having it younger and younger,” but said that the more important thing is to let people have the ability to talk about contraception more freely.
He said, “We need to give people the courage to be able to talk about these things. And the only way we can do it is by creating a mass of people talking about contraception.”
ARY LAUFER, REGIONAL DIRECTOR OF MARIE STOPES INTERNATIONAL
To counter the problem of a lack of information in Singapore and the Asia Pacific region, a Youth Task Force has been created this year and comprises well-known personalities including Asia Pacific and Singapore ambassador Denise Keller and six others from China, USA, Germany, Colombia, Brazil and the UK.
“I support World Contraception Day because to me this is a very important issue that's happening all over the world,” said Ms Keller. “Kids are not talking, kids are feeling awkward and kids are getting more and more pregnant with all kinds of diseases.”
She added, “It's all about education (and) making the informed decisions in your life. Kids have raging hormones and you can't deny that. The very fact (is) that this is a very normal aspect of becoming an adolescent and unfortunately we don't have proper empowerment.”
YOUTH TASK FORCE ASIA PACIFIC AND SINGAPORE AMBASSADOR DENISE KELLER
Also present at the press conference was Edmund Ong, president of the Singapore Planned Parenthood Association (SPPA), to present a Singaporean perspective.
Asked what his greatest concern was, Mr Ong said, “I think the most worrying one for us, and the government as well, is the number of unwanted pregnancies and therefore the increasing number of abortions. There is a very important role for us to give more education.”
“The number of youth participating in premarital sex has increased significantly. The number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions is also very alarming. The latest figures from the Ministry of Health show that there were about 12,200 abortions in the last year,” he added.
SPPA PRESIDENT EDMUND ONG
Greater awareness is needed
One way the panel pointed out to increase awareness is through doctors, parents and teachers, as the surveyed youths indicated them as the ones they trusted most as sources of contraception information.
Mr Laufer suggested, “Maybe we need to give the courage and conviction to doctors to start talking to young people about contraception and also allow our young people to access doctors more cheaply to be able to talk about these things.”
Added Mr Ong, “We need to educate the teachers so that they can also be the people who can provide (contraception information). But up till this point, indications are that teachers are feeling very uncomfortable about doing sex education. Similarly, parents are very uncomfortable about doing that. Why? Because they are not equipped. So if we can train the teachers and also the parents, I think that will go a long way.”
PANELISTS TAKING QUESTIONS FROM THE MEDIA
Despite good intentions and ideas, Ms Keller admits it will not be an easy task.
She said, “I think there is still a huge taboo factor and that's my point of view here where I'd really like to break that: be it (the) multimedia platform, be it Twitter, be it Facebook, because kids are tuned in to the Internet. So if they're tuned there and they want to surf round and gather information, maybe that will break the taboo.” JT
PHOTOS: JOSHUA TAN
VIEW MORE PHOTOS HERE
World Contraception Day occurs yearly on Sept 26. For more details, visit http://your-life-asia.com
joshua[a]youth.sg
Josh fantasises about being a ninja and wants you all to practice safe sex!
THIS ARTICLE IS PART OF Sept 28-Oct 4 :: The Pink Ribbon Issue
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