Shielding Youth Through Exposure?

By Contributor | June 2, 2011

Just in time for the upcoming conference on HIV/AIDS, UNICEF, UNAIDS, and a host of other UN agencies released a report yesterday, entitled “Opportunity in Crisis,” on preventing HIV/AIDS among adolescents aged 10-24. While the report is relatively extensive in outlining the varied reasons for the prevalence of HIV infection among different populations of young people, the number-one strategy it recommends to shield youth from HIV/AIDS infection is comprehensive sexuality education – even for adolescents aged 10-14.

Comprehensive sexuality education programs, however, have not been proven to significantly, consistently reduce the incidence of high-risk behaviors or HIV infection among adolescents; there are few studies that have looked extensively at the long-term results of their implementation. As such it seems like a gamble for these organizations to place so much emphasis on an intervention that is, at best, questionably effective- especially when dealing with the lives and futures of children.

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