The Mail & Guardian’s Victoria John attended the launch of Old Enough To Know: Consulting Children About Sex and AIDS Education in Africa at which co-author, Sharlene Swartz, addressed the need for exposure to sex education in African schools. In a report of the event John quotes Swartz as saying that “we must stop thinking that if kids don’t know about sex it will protect them against diseases and pregnancy”

Children in sub-Saharan Africa are highly aware of the sexualised world they live in and are at dire risk falling pregnant or contracting HIV/Aids or both as teenagers if they are treated as mere innocents, a recent Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and Cambridge University study has found. 

And children themselves say they want to discuss sex — because they see evidence of it all around them in any case.

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