In an article published in Newsday, June 20, 2011, the National Aids Council’s proposal to introduce condoms in schools to fight HIV/AIDS has triggered nationwide outrage and condemnation. Some people argue that school children should be taught to abstain from sex rather than having access to condoms as a way of combating the spread of HIV AIDS. Some people feel that this action by the National AIDS Council (NAC) will encourage children to indulge in sex at a tender age.

On June 5, 2011, The Sunday Mail published an article entitled “Boys in sex-for-favours with teachers” based on a survey which was conducted by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare. In the report SAfAIDS also launched its program “Scaling up access to sexual and reproductive health and rights for adolescents and young people” in partnership the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, and Zimbabwean civic organisations like Women’s Action Group (Wag), Padare/Enkundleni, SayWhat and Patsime Trust.

This report by the Ministry clearly shows that our school children are now sexually active at a tender age especially in high schools. By denying school children access to condoms, isn’t it a fact that these children will be more exposed to HIV/AIDS? Should we support the NAC to go ahead and distribute condoms to our children at schools?

This entry was posted on June 21st, 2011 at 9:56 am by Lenard Kamwendo and is filed under Reflections, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.