A medical practitioner, Dr Godwin Uwaoma, said on Monday that girls in Aba, Abia State engage in active sexual activities from the age of 10, raising higher chances of contracting HIV.
Uwaoma, the Chairman of the Thematic Working Group at the Nigerian Faith Based Advisory Council for AIDS (NFACA), told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Aba that a 2014 research revealed the development.
He said that the study was conducted to find out the awareness of preventive measures among youths in the secondary schools for the Department of Public Health at the Imo State University.
“We discovered that some girls in Aba start sexual activities at the age 10 to 12 and that at the age of 12, girls in Aba have ‘regular boyfriends’ with whom they agree to have sex regularly.
“This was not known before. Usually HIV prevention was targeted at age 15 upward but we now know that before 15 they have become sexually active.
“And there is a lot of difference between when you are forced into it and you remove yourself thereafter and when at this age you now have a regular partner.
“That was what we discovered and it is not normal but an aberration but obviously the fact is there,” he said.
At a lecture organised by the Aba chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) to mark their week, Uwaoma called for prevention rather than cure which was unavailable for HIV cases.
He urged the students to desist from watching pornographic films, playing sexual games with opposite sex and keeping bad friends to save them from sexual temptations.
In another lecture titled “Sex and Puberty,” Dr Kenneth Ngwogu, a lecturer at the Abia State University, said that puberty brought changes in character and body composition to young people.
Noting that most youths ruined their lives through dangerous actions like early sex, Ngwogu urged them to consult doctors or adults to manage the challenges of puberty.
He charged the youth to desist from sexual activities which could refocus their attention while in school to reach their goals of becoming successful people.
(NAN)
