Talking Sex To Save Young Lives

As reported in this news article, two Malaysian women in their twenties, Rafidah Abdullah and Kartini Ariffin, are "talking sex" in predominantly Muslim Malaysia as part of a communication endeavour that is described as "a mix of rebellion, education and plain saving young lives from HIV." Launched in 2000, the weekly televised infotainment programme is an effort to stir up debate and raise awareness about issues that matter to youth through the inclusion of youthful personalities and the placement of young people at the centre. "Peer to peer programmes (on safe sex and HIV) work much better, because young people see it not as adults talking down at them," says Rafidah.

This strategy of open communication has developed in response to the fact that more and more children and young people in East Asia and the Pacific are being impacted by (and are dying from) HIV/AIDS. For example, according to a joint UNICEF/UNAIDS report released in October 2005 that is titled "East Asia: Children and HIV/AIDS", Thailand sees 28,000 new infections a year with 50-60% of them involving children and young people under 24. It adds that 70% of the young people now living with HIV/AIDS in the country are girls and women between the ages 15 and 24. To flesh out the picture further, by 2004, 120,700 children were living with HIV/AIDS in the Asia-Pacific region out of an estimated 8.2 million adults and children infected with the virus, with over a third of those cases (46,900) among young people newly infected in 2004. Nearly 1.5 million children have lost one or both parents due to AIDS in the Asia-Pacific region, and close to 34,500 children needed anti-AIDS drugs as a result of being infected by their mothers. However, knowledge of this crisis and/or how to prevent it seems limited: "In a survey of students in rural China, over half of the students believed that they could prevent HIV by exercising."

Even in this context, the Asia-Pacific regional director of UNICEF claims that "Children have been ignored, despite bearing the brunt of HIV." To prevent further deaths, child- and youth-focused efforts like the Malaysian television programme cited above are recommended, as are other efforts to provide the vulnerable with information and skills through such remedies as good-quality sex education that does not take a moralistic tone, as well as policies that offer special treatment to children in the area of prevention, care, and support.