Most Japanese Youth Dissatisfied with School Sex Education

Nearly 90 percent of Japanese youth surveyed said they were dissatisfied with the sex education they receive at school and elsewhere, and they feel adults should not hesitate to tell them how to avoid contracting STDs. More than 87 percent of respondents said they become impatient with adults who are embarrassed to talk about sex, while 62.6 percent said they think it is ridiculous that adults believe junior high and high school students do not have sex. More than 77 percent of female respondents, all in their teens, have had sex. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare surveyed about 300 couples in January and February in the Shibuya and Ikebukuro districts, both in central Tokyo.

Masako Kihara, a member of the ministry study group and an assistant at Hiroshima University's medical department, said adults must play a greater role in sex education as youth are seeking relevant information about sex and sexuality. "Young people nowadays are having sex earlier and more often, whether they live in urban areas or rural areas, but adults have failed to understand that reality," said Yoshiaki Kumamoto, a professor emeritus at Sapporo Medical University in Hokkaido. The ministry has expressed concern that HIV is spreading among teenagers through unprotected sex.

The study group chose couples in which the female was in her teens to fill out the questionnaires. A total of 602 people responded, with male respondents ranging in age from 13 to 27 and female respondents from 13 to 17. The study group conducted the survey to gauge youth awareness levels about the rise in HIV infection rates over the past few years. Tsuneo Akaeda, a Tokyo doctor who provides free health consultations to women said, "judging from my experience, almost no young people use condoms when they have sex." Children should receive sex education from elementary school onward, he said.

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