Bangladeshi Schools to Have Sex Education From 2004

On Wednesday, the newspaper Bangladesh Today quoted Education Secretary Mohammad Shahidul as saying the nation will introduce sex education in schools beginning in 2004 in the hope of stemming the spread of STDs. "With the alarming rise in incidences of sexually transmitted diseases and the emergence of [the] AIDS pandemic, sex education has come to the forefront," he said. Sunity Achariya, UN Population Fund Representative to Bangladesh, said the nation's young "should be given proper sex education. The children and adolescents are receiving wrong sex education from the Internet, pornographic books and commercial sex workers," she said. Government figures show that 248 people in Bangladesh have HIV and 20 have died from AIDS. The UN's estimate -- 13,000 Bangladeshis with HIV -- is still far below neighboring India, where at least 3.97 million people have HIV.

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