The messages sent out to South African youths by the government’s loveLife Aids prevention campaign are ”inadequate and dangerous”, says the African Christian Democratic Party.
The campaign sends out mixed messages about sex, and causes passions to become ”inflamed by their explicit advertising with sexual images”, ACDP MP Cheryllyn Dudley said in a statement on Thursday.
The message the country’s youth gets is ”that it is okay to have sex if you want to”, but the campaign does not explain the consequences and potential life-threatening effects.
”Recent research indicating that, despite high levels of awareness about HIV/Aids, the majority of South Africa’s youth do not think they are at risk, confirms the ACDP’s warnings that the … government’s official prevention campaign messages, through loveLife, are inadequate and dangerous.”
Campaigns continue to encourage young people to engage in sexual relations, and promote condoms as the solution to the problem.
Dudley said this is despite this method clearly not working, and ”huge amounts of taxpayers’ and donor funds being thrown into these counterproductive measures”.
”The ACDP believes that a no-nonsense education and marketing campaign is essential, in which the harsh realities of living with HIV/Aids are clearly expressed, and not glamourised.
”Education must be upfront about HIV being a sexually transmitted disease, and must focus on abstinence and fidelity rather than promoting the illusion of safe sex,” she said. — Sapa