 Linh Huong, an expert from the Centre for Youth's Psychological and Development Research, said: "Young people can¹t learn about sex and sexual safety from their parents because their parents also lack knowledge and can¹t answer their children¹s questions, which is why they often evade such questions. Many parents are even prejudiced against the issue, and when their children ask them about it they think their children have been corrupted." Parents decide to close the issue, thinking that in this way they can prevent the child from unsafe sexual relationships.
According to a recent research on gender equality, the rate of female youth who can talk with their parents about friendship, love, and sex is higher than males. However, much sex education within families exists only as warnings and admonishments.
"My mother sometimes warned me to be careful in relationships with boys by quoting stories from newspapers but when I asked her about specific circumstances she is embarrassed and tells me it¹s a topic for adults and I don¹t need to know now," said Thu Ha, a high-school girl in Hanoi.
Most participants in the online survey agreed that sex education should begin for children at the age of 10-15, and that parents should have complete answers and explanations for their children¹s sex-related questions, and talk with them like friends. They said that vague explanations can cause curiosity in their children, which can lead to bad circumstances.
In fact, many people can¹t or don¹t want to properly explain sex issues to their children. A high-school boy from southern Long An Province said: "Once I read a newspaper and saw the word "masturbation" and I asked my mother what it meant. My mother looked at me and said that I'd played with bad friends who had poisoned me. I only wanted to know what the word meant. I then asked my cousin, a medical student, and he clearly explained it to me. Why can't adults be open with us?" Thus, family education in sex comes not only from parents but also from brothers and sisters.
Schools also neglect sex education
Sex and reproductive health education at schools is currently totally neglected, and textbooks on morals and biology ignore the issue. Though some textbooks mention humans and health, they only introduce body parts in general, without sex and gender behaviour.
Of the textbooks on biology at secondary and high school, only one textbook of 8th grade students mentions humans, but nothing about reproductive health, sex activities, safe sex, or how to avoid sexual relations when one is not ready.
To provide general students with knowledge about sex, the Ministry of Education and Training and the National Committee for Population, Family and Children began implementing a programme named "Strengthening the quality of education on population and juvenile reproductive health in high schools" in 2001, however it has not made the situation much better.
A student of Hanoi's Chu Van An High School complained: "Drugs and HIV/AIDS are discussed a lot at school but knowledge on reproductive health and sex is completely ignored, although it is an issue that we are interested in and the main reason for HIV/AIDS infection".
Self education
To escape the ³hunger¹ for information, most young people learn sex and reproductive knowledge themselves through newspapers, movies, and through information shared with their friends. The survey showed that 41.2% of 4,700 participants said that they learned about sex themselves, 30.8% through newspapers and 10.9% through friends.
"Along with the development of society, there are many changes among our young generation. They reach puberty earlier and also begin relationships much earlier. Thus information about sex and reproductive health is necessary for young people of the modern age," said a doctor of the Youth Research Institute.
Youth not only lack sex information but want to have highly accurate and educational information. The need for information is different for different age groups, with each paying attention to something different. However, issues related to friendship, love, psychophysiology of puberty, gender, family planning and contraception, body parts, and sexually-transmitted diseases are something Vietnamese youths want to know.
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