Educating about safe sex practices

Safe sex means the use of condoms, or non-penetrative sex, to avoid infection and pregnancy.

There is a gap between knowledge and practice among sexually active young people. A study in rural Uganda found that the mean age for first sex was 15 years for both girls and boys. Contraceptive awareness was over 80%, but only 24% of couples were using any method.

Enormous progress has been made in the last few years with the acceptability of condoms. In Vanuatu, South Pacific, the Family Health Unit produced a radio programme to encourage young people to use condoms. They wrote and performed three short plays in Bislama about worried parents, two young men and two young women. The refrain throughout the programme was 'No condom, no sex', sung to the tune of Bob Marley's 'No Woman, No Cry'.