Posted on 06/21/2002 10:06:48 AM PDT by Teacher317
I was just watching Fox News Channel, and they had a story about "Love Life", a program in South Africa that is responding to the AIDS crisis by encouraging teenagers to opt for oral sex instead of penetrative sex to help reduce the risk of exposure and transmission.
I couldn't find a FR thread on this, and this ceratinly seems like a topic that should be here. Here's a link to the International Planned Parenthood Federation's promotional page for the program. The headline?
Young People are sexual beings
This seems like a simple concept, yet for many people it is difficult to accept
One paragraph later...
IPPF and its partners, recognising young people's sexual rights, needs and responsibilities, address young people's sexuality in holistic and positive ways.
FPAs take on social and religious constraints, even in countries where sexuality is never mentioned in everyday terms. On Valentine's Day, the Sri Lankan FPA set up an exhibition in Colombo's "Lovers' Park", a meeting-place for young couples avoiding the scrutiny of their parents. The exhibition - run by volunteers from local schools -- provided information on sexual health and relationships; many of the hundreds of visitors had never received such information before.
Then we get to the "Love Life" program...
The Love Life Project
Love Life's possibilities, it seems, are boundless. What started as four youth centres at the end of 1999 is already developing income-generating services such as Internet cafés offering computer training, sexual health radio programmes in partnership with community stations, and sports and recreational centres.
Four major -- and several smaller -- private donors fund the South African Love Life project co-ordinated by a consortium of leading national NGOs. Love Life incorporates four Youth Centres (Y-Centres), a national youth helpline, a peer education outreach programme, and a national adolescent-friendly clinic initiative.
The Planned Parenthood Association of South Africa (PPASA) provides Love Life with institutional support and services, while the programme is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Kaiser Family Foundation, USAID, the South African Department of Health and local private sector sponsors.
The worst is at the very bottom of the page... right next to the caption, "More young people are taking control of their sexual and reproductive lives in Europe " is this photo of two girls who look to be about 10 and 8 years old.
Well, this is South Africa, where the conventional wisdom says that having sex with a virgin cures AIDS. This of course, has led to the raping and gang-raping of children and infants, so it's probably not a 'tough sell'.
In which case Clinton should be a shoo-in for the Nobel Prize in Medicine ;-)
Thanks to International Planned Parenthood, these girls
will soon be saying, "Hey sailor, over here! You wanna party?"
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