Prague, March 17 (CTK) – Almost one-quarter of 15-year-old Czech boys and girls already had sexual intercourse, daily Lidove noviny (LN) writes yesterday, quoting the figures from a survey held under the auspices of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
In previous generations, the figure stood at 15 percent of boys and girls in this age at most, sexologist Petr Weiss is quoted as saying.
“The proportion of 25 percent in the 15-year-old group is high and negative. We know that the people who start their sexual life prematurely, later have a higher number of sexual partners and tend to use contraceptives less than the rest,” he added.
Seventeen to 18 years is the average age for the first sexual intercourse in the Czech Republic, LN writes.
The study Health Behaviour in School-aged Children included 220,000 schoolchildren from 42 countries in the world, it adds.
It has also revealed that compared with the international average, Czech youths use more often condoms and hormonal contraceptives, LN writes.
The study shows that 74 percent of Czech boys used a condom and 30 percent of girls hormonal contraceptives in their latest sexual intercourse, it adds.
“Since the [1989] revolution, the number of women using hormonal contraceptives, even when starting their sexual life, has been growing. The number of men using a condom in the first sex has been on the rise as well,” Weiss said.
Experts say the information on the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases should be primarily given to the teenagers by the school and parents.
However, the reality is different, LN writes.
In the Czech part of the survey, only one-fifth of children cited school and parents as their primary source of information about sex, it adds.
The rest look for answers online.
Milan Kudyn, deputy chairman of the Association of Doctors for Children and Adolescents, said the attention should be transferred to the parents.
“They should be the first. However, I believe that in general, the information for the youths is very well accessible at present,” Kudyn said.
He said girls asked him about contraceptives roughly four times in six months in his surgery.
Schoolchildren in Bulgaria, Hungary and Nordic countries have similarly rich experience with sex, LN writes.
Experts warn of the situation in Britain and the USA, it adds.
“The social and pathological phenomena generated by premature sexual intercourse are much more frequent there than here,” gynaecologist Petr Krepelka is quoted as saying.
