Positive communication between parents and children can help young people learn about their sexuality, as well as how to practice safe sex, a hospital director said on Monday.
Parents should educate their children about safe sexual practices as early as possible to effectively tackle adolescent pregnancy and minimize the risks of sexually transmitted diseases, said Chan Te-fu (詹德富), director of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital.
Chan made the comments after a study found that roughly 59 percent of Taiwanese university students said they had had sexual intercourse.
Of that group, 58 percent had their first experience in college, compared with 29 percent in high school and 13 percent in junior-high or elementary school, according to the study, which was conducted by a condom supplier.
The more educated people are about their reproductive health, the better prepared they are to make wise choices, Chan said, adding that knowledge about contraceptives and respect for sexuality is typically lacking in young adolescents.
Pregnant teenagers are more likely to give birth prematurely and have an unhealthy baby than women in their 20s, Chan said.
Chan said he has had patients as young as 13 seek treatment for itchiness, which was diagnosed as syphilis.
One girl said that she had sex on several occasions with a number of friends she met on social media, but did not know her actions could lead to diseases, he added.
Adolescents can be poorly informed about sexually transmitted diseases and have difficulty recognizing pregnancy because their parents have never discussed the topic with them, Chan said.
Parents should interact more with their children, understand their dating situations and provide them with information on sex so that early pregnancies and sexual diseases can be prevented, he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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