Vietnam's High Abortion Rate, Lack of Sex Education Among Young People, Agence France-Presse Examines

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 10 Jul 2005 - 8:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

AFP/Yahoo! News on Thursday examined Vietnam's high abortion rate and the lack of sex education among young people in the country. According to the Vietnam Family Planning Association, the country has one of the world's highest abortion rates. About 1.4 million abortions are performed annually in the country, which has a population of 82 million. Gender inequality -- which increases the rate of sex-selective abortion -- and a lack of sex education and contraceptive use are the main causes of the high abortion rate, experts say. In addition, the average age sexual debut in the country has decreased from age 19 seven years ago to age 14.5 today, according to a survey by the National Committee for Population, Family and Children. Although the country has promoted contraceptives through various awareness campaigns, they are not widely used or well-understood by most Vietnamese people. As a result of these trends, some experts are calling for the government and organizations to cooperate in sex and gender education for young people in schools (AFP/Yahoo! News, 7/7).

AFP/Yahoo! News

"Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.