Several Russian news agencies (NEWSru.com for example)wrote yesterday that Moscow municipality decided to spend about 900,000 USD on the campaign promoting sexual abstinence. The campaign was decided to be held because there were no positive results from the previous attemp to decrease the number of sexually tranmitted desease and teenage pregnancy by promoting safe sex.
On the other side of the Web, Julie of the ‘a little pregnant‘ blog wrote this post. It links to the a number of studies and reports which show that sexual abstinence pledges are not a panacea.
[paranoid mode]Coincidence? I think not.[/paranoid mode]
I don’t think that Moscow will see any major changes after the campaign. I think that educating teenagers about safe sex, making condoms and other guardians easily available (everywhere, at any time, and cheap), and increasing the overall moral values of the population is the only way to combat the problem. From what I see in the blogs of Russian teenagers, sex, alcohol, and weed play a much bigger role in the average teenager’s life than they should. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be there. I’m just worried about the extent to which they are. Comparing Russian blogs with blogs of teenagers from other countries makes all the difference in the world. Unfortunately.