Health Minister Dr. Jean Damascene Ntawukuriryayo said on Monday that health workers need to ‘call sexual organs by their real names’ to enable young people understand the messages they are transmitting.
‘When talking to people coming to you for counselling or during any form of encounter with certain age groups, it is appropriate that you openly speak about anything’, he told two-day workshop for health officials from across the country in Kigali.
According to available information, behavioural conduct among Rwandans makes then vulnerable to contracting sexually transmitted diseases. There have also been concerns as to whether the vast sensitisation campaigns are actually making the desired impact because health workers seem to fear speaking about things like sex organs – considered ‘bedroom affairs’.
Government and campaigners on the control effort of HIV/Aids have of recent introduced programs in the media to address things Rwandan would rather not talk about. For example, all around the country are large billboards portraying young-stars asking to be helped to understand all aspects surrounding sex.
There has also been debate as to whether undertaking such a process of ‘opening up’, as it is called on the part of health officials and parents, would contribute to halting young people engaging in sex, or otherwise.
The World Health Organisation – WHO – said in report in July that young people in Rwanda are having sex at very tender ages living the fight against the spread of HIV/Aids in controversy.
In a comparison of young men’s sexual behaviours in six African countries, average age of first sexual intercourse fell in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania between 1996 and 2006, but increased in Mozambique, Rwanda, and Uganda, the World Health Organisation said.
In Rwanda, the percentage of young people aged 15-24 who had sex before the age of 15 is said to be at 13% among males and just 4 percent with the females. This shows that young females are probably holding-out much longer.
The National Aids Commission said it would wait for definitive national data due from a study to be concluded in 2010 before committing more resources to sexual abstinence efforts.