60 Percent of Teens Engage in Unprotected Sex

By Lee Tae-hoon

Staff Reporter

Only one in three Korean teenagers engaging in sexual intercourse use a contraceptive, leading to a high rate of pregnancy, abortion and venereal diseases, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported Monday.

Some 41 percent of juveniles having sex use some kind of contraceptive and 11.1 percent of them have suffered from STDs, according to the report.

The 2008 survey finds that 9.7 percent of teenage girls with sexual experience had been pregnant, up from 9.3 percent from the previous year. Of the pregnant teens, 88.3 percent opted for an abortion.

Of the 75,238 surveyed adolescents nationwide, 5.1 percent said they had experienced sexual intercourse.

Teenage males had a higher rate of sexual experience at 6.9 percent with the figure for females standing at 3 percent.

The average age that the teens lost their virginity was 14.1 years old; one percent of them answered that they had sex before entering middle school.

Of the 2,658 surveyed teenage boys with sexual experience, 12.1 percent answered they had an STD, while 8.4 percent of the 1,159 surveyed teenage girls replied they had caught one.

``The problem is attributable to our culture which puts a taboo on the discussion of specific or practical measures at home and school,'' Lee Won-hee, a director at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said during a parliamentary forum, citing the report.

According to another survey of 2,145 secondary school students in 2008, 95 percent of them had sex education at school, but less than five percent were involved in any kind of practical discussions.

Some 75 percent answered their teachers covered only the theoretical aspects of the issue, while roughly 68 percent answered their class mainly consisted of watching a sex education video.

``Teenage pregnancy has emerged as a major social issue due to the lack of awareness and proper education about the matter, coupled with the public's tendency to avoid talking about the matter,'' Rep. Lee Yoon-sung of the governing Grand National Party said.