PANOS London - Monday, May 19, 1997
Anne Akia Fiedler

Though the paper's impact is hard to quantify, one thing is for certain: Ugandan teenaged girls report they are resisting pressure to have sex before they are ready -- an indication of empowerment.

Here's a sample of queries from the paper's advice column.

"Dear Syfa, I have strong sexual desires. I need to have sex with my girlfriend. The urge is out of control!" a 17-year-old boy writes.

"I have a boyfriend who wants to have sex with me but I fear pregnancy, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). I want to tell him about my fears but I'm afraid of losing him," worries a 16-year-old girl.

Syfa doesn't mince words: "Strong sexual desires are perfectly normal and can be controlled. If your girlfriend is not ready for sex, do not force her," the columnist advises the boy.

And the girl is counselled: "Do not sacrifice your true feelings and risk pregnancy or infection to please others. Be yourself."

Straight Talk's main message for teenagers is to delay having their first sexual intercourse for as long as possible. To do that, adolescents -- particularly girls -- need information, values and interpersonal skills. The magazine aims to provide all that.

There is a problem however -- nearly half of all Ugandan teenagers have sexual intercourse by the age of 15 and many girls have babies by the age of 18. So, the paper also promotes condom use and treatment for STDs for those already sexually active.

This is life-saving service in a country where an estimated 10 percent of a 17 million population are infected with HIV -- the virus that causes AIDS.

Straight Talk began in 1993 as a publication of a programme called Safeguard Youth from AIDS (SYFA) run jointly by the Ugandan government and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The English language daily New Vision, Uganda's highest circulation newspaper, prints it as a four-page monthly.

The deal has been mutually profitable: Straight Talk gives New Vision high-quality articles that attract young readers and, according to David Sseppuuya, Associate Editor of New Vision, "Straight Talk benefits by being associated with a daily which is s erious and not sensational."

By piggybacking on the daily at the cost of about three cents a copy, Straight Talk also gets national distribution. Its print- run of 100,000 -- including six vernacular language versions -- reaches an estimated one million young readers (almost the enti re secondary school population of 600,000 reads it.)

A 1995 evaluation found that all students surveyed had seen the newspaper and 70 percent shared it with their friends.

Originally, Straight Talk hoped to address parents, teachers and teenagers. But after six issues the editorial team focused on teenagers in order to help them establish safer sexual attitudes and practices before they become sexually active.

According to Catherine Watson, a registered nurse and Straight Talk's technical advisor, the decision to disseminate a 'delay sex' message was carefully taken.

"We were influenced by a 1994 WHO (World Health Organisation) study of 35 sex education programmes, which showed that 'no sex' or abstinence-based sexuality programmes have little impact. The programmes which succeeded in raising the age at first interc ourse were the ones which told them: 'postpone'," Watson said.

The study also found that sex education programmes do not lead to earlier or increased sexual activity in young people.

The editorial team rejected an emphasis on AIDS information, recognising that awareness about thedisease is high in Uganda, and that fear-based messages do not work.

"In our experience, teens are preoccupied with issues of identity, relationships and sex," Watson says. Direct feedback confirms this -- Straight Talk receives almost 3,000 letters per year, with social and emotional questions outnumbering factual and

medical queries.

The paper discusses date-rape, incest, pregnancy, body image, condom use, safer sex and love -- topics which Watson says youth never tire of.

But like teenagers in many countries, Ugandan youth too is often conditioned to accept gender inequality.

So boys are more likely to attend school than girls, who account for only 30 percent of secondary school attendance. And boys enjoy greater freedom and preference within the family.

Enter Straight Talk: realising that girls need to assert themselves, the paper reminds them that they -- not their boyfriends -- are in charge of their bodies.

Boys are told that safer sex means respect for the partner. And the concept of virginity -- a category most adolescents assign only to girls -- is being redefined by challenging boys to think of it as an acceptable stage in their own lives too.

The paper tackles myths that plague both sexes. Boys worry about penis size and vrility.

"I have been warned that if I stay without sex too long, I may gt incurable backaches and turn impotent," writes a high school boy.

And girls worry about another myth -- that abstinence causes the hymen to harden and prevent penetration. They query rumours that sex cures acne, menstrual cramps and even enhances female beauty.

Fortunately, Straight Talk has an ally in teachers. Requess from headmasters led to a school-visits programme in 1995 where health workers and counsellors met students and answered anonymously- written questions, ranging from "how to talk to girls" to b ody issues such as breast size and erections.

Students use role play to explore ways of expressing love, how to discuss using condoms or to reject the advances of 'sugar daddies' -- older men who offer schoolgirls money and other favours for sex.

Straight Talk's three mi goals are to raise the average age of first sexual intercourse, to reduce HIV and other STDs among sexually active youth and o reduce teenage pregnancies.

Proving information programmes contribute to behaviour changes is difficult, but change clearly is underway in Uganda.

In some urban areas and among certain populations in Uganda, HIV prevalence is falling. And women aged 20-24 years with some secondary school education on average reported 18 as the age at which they first had sex, according to the 1995 Demographic and H ealth Survey.

That's six months later than the age given in a previous survey of 25 to 29 year-old women who had completed school.

Press freedom and official openness about HIV/AIDS issues have helped Straight Talk win over educators, parents and church leaders who once feared that the paper was too explicit and condoned teenage-sex.

"Each month I make sure that my boys read a copy. It tells them things I cannot," says a parent who two years ago hid the paper in his office.

"If someone under 18 writes to us, we say they are too young for sex. If they are 15 we say it forcefully," nurse Watson says. "The only thing we are liberal about is information. We want adolescents to be safe." (END/PANOS/AAF/DDS/97)

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