As much as programmes offered by female advocacy groups are useful and informative, it remains insufficient to tackle issues on teen sexuality. As any parent who has an adolescent at home and he/she will tell you how tough it is to get the young person to log off from Facebook. Let's not talk about having parent-figures to educate them on sex.

If abstinence and sexuality programmes is really the path we choose to take to educate our 'sexually active' youths, how about engaging peers of their age to run these programmes? We have various youth groups in the community and peer support leaders in school. Rather than engaging female advocacy groups to run these programmes, the FA groups can train youth groups to run these programmes. This does not render FA groups irrelevant. Instead, it creates more synergy among the various groups and, perhaps, bring more synergy to these programmes.

However, if I were to provide my personal view on the effectiveness of such programmes, I will not be an advocate for it. At the stage when hormones are raging and interests on the opposite sex rise, would programmes on developing self-esteem and promoting better body image be sufficient? Moreover, labelling sexually active youths as 'having low-self esteem' is a myopic view of the myriad of factors propelling such activity.

Some pressing questions I would like to raise are:

1. Are the statistics over-reported?

2. Are these statistics a good reflection of the current situation or is it because this issue is under closer scrutiny in recent years?

3. Rather than locating the problem in the youths, do parents play a part too? Education does not start during adolescence.

I believe that the choices youths make are not just because of poor body image or low self-esteem. The choice they make depends on the influencing factors in his/her environment and his/her beliefs.

Cindy Lim Hui Mei (Ms)