Teach teenagers use condoms, AIDS experts say

Teach teenagers use condoms, AIDS experts say

JAKARTA (JP): Experts greeted today's International AIDS Day
with calls on the weekend for sex education -- including how to
use condoms -- to curb the spread of the deadly disease among
preteens and teenagers.

Psychologist Sarlito Wirawan Sarwono and an activist from the
Indonesia AIDS Foundation, Ninuk Widyantoro, agreed that
teenagers should be taught in school not only about reproductive
health and pregnancy but also how to use condoms.

Sarlito stressed that the religious approach was no longer
enough to prevent youngsters from becoming sexually active.

"Religion is no longer their life's guidance. Talking about
religion to them is nonsense. They definitely have to know how to
use condoms rather than become infected with HIV/AIDS," he told
The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

Indonesian Moslems, who account for a majority of the nation's
200 million people, are wary about the campaign to promote
condoms as a way of curbing the spread of Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome and Human Immunodeficiency Virus -- which
causes the as yet incurable disease.

Ulemas have outright rejected what they call "condomization",
saying it was tantamount to promoting promiscuity.

Sarlito, who has been campaigning for sex education for
teenagers since the 1980s, said religious teaching could only be
applied to devout followers.

"Now there are many preteens who sleep with middle-aged men,"
he said. "To the students who are already (morally) 'upright',
religion is effective ... as a preventive measure.

"But girls who have engaged (in premarital sex), we absolutely
cannot approach them through religion," he said.

Sarlito, dean of the University of Indonesia's School of
Psychology, acknowledged that Indonesia found it difficult to
incorporate sex education in the school curriculum, given the
differences in values among ethnic groups.

He suggested that lessons on safe sex be included in the
school's extracurricular activities instead.

Sarlito led a discussion on AIDS which was held Saturday by
the Ministry of Education and Culture to commemorate
International AIDS Day.

This year, the world-wide event is titled Children Living in a
World with AIDS.

An expert from the Ministry of Health, Dr. Broto Wasisto, said
during his presentation at Saturday's symposium that changing
people's sexual behavior through education could prevent HIV/AIDS
infection among people, particularly teenagers.

Broto, who is chairman of the National Commission on AIDS
Prevention's working group, cited how anti-AIDS campaigns in U.S.
schools did not reduce the number of students having unsafe sex.

"The use of condoms increased when sex education and the
campaign were followed by discussions on the impact of unsafe
sexual relationships, including pregnancy and venereal diseases,"
he said.

The first reported AIDS case in Indonesia was in Bali in 1987.

According to last month's health ministry statistics, 599
people have been infected with HIV and 152 of them have full-
blown AIDS.

Of the 599 cases, 528 people (88 percent) are aged between 15
and 49 and 499 (83 percent) were infected through sexual contact.
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