India to Ask Young Villagers to Encourage Safe Sex

An official with India's National AIDS Control Organization said at a recent conference on sexual equality that the organization will over the next five years train young adults to become peer educators about safe sex and HIV. "They could be weavers, or agricultural laborers or just be hanging around the village market place," said Sujatha Rao, NACO's director general. "But the point is the distribution of condoms, and messages on radio and TV only go so far. We need to sit down with young people and make them talk." About 20,000 adults in their early 20s hailing from some 640,000 villages with more than 5,000 residents would be recruited. Peer educators would help subvert what health workers say are common macho ideals, such as that men should have unprotected sex with as many women as possible, said Rao.

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