http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article615748.ece/Pre-teens-are-having-plenty-of-unsafe-sex-shock-survey-finds

Aug 22, 2010 12:00 AM | By PREGA GOVENDER
Pupils as young as 12 are having unprotected sex – some of them with multiple partners.

A total of 253 out of 665 pupils from five schools in Pretoria admitted to being sexually active. And 48 – or nearly one out of every five of the children having sex – said they had had two or more sexual partners in the past 12 months.

At least six of the pupils engaging in risky sex are in primary school.

The Foundation for Professional Development – described as the largest self-funding health-sector educational provider in Southern Africa – conducted the survey, which revealed that 66 of the pupils had not used condoms.

Childline said the findings mirrored the situation in the rest of the country.

A 13-year-old at a technical secondary school in Atteridgeville gave birth to a baby boy in June, while another 13-year-old at a primary school in Garankuwa, outside Pretoria, became a father late last year.

Joanne Brink, head of the education unit at the foundation, said the results indicated that HIV-prevention messages at schools were not effective.

“Very few sexually active learners think they are at risk of contracting HIV/Aids,” she said.

The principal of the Atteridgeville school attended by the 13-year-old mother said some of the children were “crazy about sex”.

Between January and May, he confiscated five CDs of pornographic material.

“I also confiscated a cellphone containing nude pictures of one of our schoolgirls that was being circulated by her former boyfriend.”

He said pupils caught with pornographic material were in grades 8 to 10.

Andrew Julies, a leader of a pilot project in Vredendal in the Western Cape that tries to reduce the school dropout rate, said sex among young pupils was a “huge problem … especially among boys aged 12, 13 and 14.”

Julies said one of the biggest contributing factors was that many parents abused alcohol and neglected their children. “Because their mothers and fathers are always fighting, the only comfort they get is from their boyfriends,” he said.

A total of 22 girls fell pregnant at Vredendal North Secondary School last year.

Joan van Niekerk, manager of advocacy and training at Childline, said: “There is a lot of pressure on girls to become sexually active.”

Girls had also told Childline they felt powerless to insist on contraception.