For as long as I can remember Philip Carabott has been a sort of lone voice in the wilderness, calling upon the Maltese authorities to introduce a sensible sexual health policy before things got worse on the venereal diseases front.
This apparently logical appeal has not fallen upon fertile ground. As far as I can see, the sum total of the sex educational policy to date amounted to a poster campaign showing a girl wearing a cycling helmet, accompanied with words to the effect that if you wanted to go out to play, you should take protective gear along with you.
I may be wrong but I’m guessing that this ill-conceived campaign did not produce the intended effect. The image of a long-haired girl clutching a cycling helmet isn’t exactly going to make teenagers pause their fumbling in the dark to get some contraception is it?
Neither will it make them abstain or think twice about their bouncing about – though it may prompt them to buy a helmet if they take up cycling.
That non-starter apart, we’re told that the National Sexual Health Policy was launched last November and presumably we are now in that limbo-like stage where the policy wonks start drafting the strategy from that policy.
They can take their own sweet time about it. In the meantime, the numbers show up the Maltese as being either uninformed or reckless, or both, when it comes to sexual health issues and birth control.
Take the figures pertaining to mothers under 18 – or teenage mothers. Between 2000 and 2009, 936 babies were born to mothers under 18 amounting to 2.5 per cent of all babies delivered in those years. Five per cent of those mothers were under 15 and gave birth to 47 babies.
As if those statistics weren’t worrying enough, there are the discouraging figures for 2010, compiled by the Genitourinary Clinic. These show record figures for two sexually transmitted infections (STIs) – syphilis (25 cases registered, compared with the previous record 21 cases in 2008) and chlamydia (127 compared with the previous record of 116 in 2008).
The latter figures are not surprising, considering that 70 per cent of all those who visited the clinic in 2010 failing to use a condom to protect themselves against STIs.
From my reading of the National Sexual Health Policy it seems that comprehensive sexual education is in the offing. The notion of young children having natural innocence, which may be prematurely lost as a result of lessons designed to raise their sexual awareness, has been discarded, as recent studies have disproved it.
Education about the mechanics of sexual relations and ways to prevent the transmission of STDs may meet with a measure of success. However it may prove to moredifficult to discourage the increasingly prevalent mentality that having a baby – even if the circumstances are not at all conducive to child-rearing – is something to aspire to.
This phenomenon is quite distinct from that of girls falling pregnant because they are uninformed, misinformed, or careless about the consequences of having unprotected sex.
No, I’m talking about girls or women who have the contraception basics figured out and still set out to get pregnant, despite the fact that they’re not in a stable relationship, or are young and not financially independent.
In effect they are the women who are becoming what is colloquially referred to as ‘baby mamas’ or women who deliberately have children when they are not currently (and most likely were never) the father’s primary or exclusive partner.
A friend who has worked in the educational sector for a long time says she has seen an increase in the number of girls who harbour no greater ambitions than that to have a baby as soon as possible, despite the evident drawbacks that doing so will have.
This is due to a number of reasons but mainly because the role models they are exposed to are mothers – not career or working women.
In a world where the media are more taken up with stories about women breaking the glass ceiling and juggling family and work, there is a whole cohort of young girls who have little or no notion of the fact that motherhood can be accompanied by other roles.
They think that having a baby is much easier than securing a steady job or even working towards establishing a family or stable relationship. In this sense, a baby does provide ‘instant’ gratification in that it provides the mother with someone to love and channel all her emotions towards.
Now there are many who will argue that it is unjust to stigmatise mothers who choose to have children even if they are not in a stable relationship, and I would agree.
There are many single mothers who are doing splendid jobs of bringing up their children. And in certain circumstances havingone responsible parent may be better than having two warring dysfunctional ones.
Still, I can’t help feeling that young girls who are deliberately going for parenthood alone are selling themselves short, and will have to contend with the problems of supporting children on a single-income household, reliance on social benefits, and parenting without and without partner support. I wonder how we’re ever going to get around eradicating this baby mama culture and helping young women know they can aspire to more.
Since we haven’t even gotten round to basic sex education in schools, a more comprehensive effort seems very remote.
cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt