Accuracy of religious document against condoms (4)
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In reply to Christopher Byrne's email with the report by his sister-in-
law:
1.You write: "There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why abstinence should not
be a part of any sexual education programme." I am not aware of any
sexual education programme for young people which omits the promotion
of abstinence, in eastern and southern Africa, or in England.
2. Your sister-in-law writes: "Introducing them [young people] to con-
doms causes promiscuity". As long as we can agree on a definition of
promiscuity, this is an empirically testable statement.
Most studies of condom promotion among young people have found either
that it has no effect, or it makes young people put off "sexual debut"
until they are older, and reduces the number of their sexual partners
(i.e. makes them less "promiscuous"). In similar vein, UNAIDS commis-
sioned a literature review "Impact of HIV and sexual health education
on the sexual behaviour of young people: a review update" (1997), which
found the same thing: good sex education reduces "promiscuity", al-
though I don't think that word was used.
To use a condom is to take a pre-meditated, considered step towards
protecting one's own health and the health of one's partner. Prof. Alan
Haworth here in Zambia did a big KAP survey of tertiary students, and
included questions to measure "religious strictness". (Haworth et al,
"Religious belief and sexual behaviour of tertiary level students in
Zambia", Abstract, XI International Conference on AIDS, Vancouver
1996). He found that strictly religious students were slightly less
likely to have sex than less strict students (about 30% compared to
about 50%, self-reported). However, the strictly religious students who
were having sex were less likely to use condoms.
In a country where 25% of adults in towns are HIV+, this means that
some mixed-up messages from the church could be responsible for thou-
sands of early deaths.
I think the key here is that young people are not all the same. The
message of abstinence will save the lives of some young people, but it
will be rejected by many others. We need a Plan B for these youth who
reject abstinence, and the condom is the best Plan B anyone has come up
with so far.
Andrew Hobbs
mailto:andhobbs@zamnet.zm
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