AIDS educators fight sex taboo - IHT/Asahi

AIDS educators fight sex taboo
07/05/2005
By TARO KARASAKI Staff Writer

KOBE--A recent attempt to stop "Dr. Condom" from teaching safe sex is a perfect example of what is hampering efforts to curb AIDS in Asia, experts say.

Dr. Condom is actually Shinya Iwamuro, a urologist and public health expert. A junior high school in Kanagawa Prefecture has asked Iwamuro to refrain from showing how to affix the prophylactics (to inanimate objects) when he teaches a course on safe sex there later this week.

"How am I supposed to properly have the students understand? Properly being able to apply a condom is the most important part of learning to protect oneself," Iwamuro said here Monday as he prepared for a presentation at the International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.

Education has been repeatedly described as crucial in containing a potential AIDS pandemic in Asia during the conference, which ends today.

But even in the host country, such education faces a huge obstacle.

Iwamuro, who gives 100 lectures at schools nationwide annually, says he thinks conservative politicians pressured the education board to ask the school to alter the content of his course on safe sex.

The Liberal Democratic Party is on a nationwide campaign to tone down sex education, a topic some conservatives deem "too radical and explicit" for children.

A symposium in June organized by an LDP group to study sex education drew more than 600 participants.

An organizer said the group is not opposed to sex education, but it wants to remove "education unfit for the hearts and minds of young children."

AIDS conference participants from Asia say such attitudes toward sex are a major barrier to their efforts.

"Even the Islamic clerics realize there is a problem, as they have youths suffering from HIV in their backyards," said Ari Yuda Laksmana, youth advocate counselor for the Indonesian Youth Partnership. He is lobbying with Jakarta for a law mandating reproductive and sex education for youths.

Ira Sridhiva, who helps commercial sex workers in South Sumatra, said the social stigma prevents the government from grasping the depth of the problem. "They do not acknowledge the existence of sex workers," she said.

Iwamuro has not given up.

He was recently heartened by the words of a principal at a junior high school where he teaches his course. The principal said he would protect the course because it is a form of "human rights education," since condom use advocates consideration for others.

"Nobody really ever put it that way before," Iwamuro said.(IHT/Asahi: July 5,2005)