A new scheme in Derry aimed at tackling underage pregnancies is shifting the focus from young women and putting it on young men. In most cases the fathers of babies born to young mothers are teenagers. While young men are often accused of acting irresponsibly in sexual relations, they are very rarely given the information or the assistance to be otherwise, according to the director of the Northern Ireland Family Planning Association, Ms Audrey Simpson.
"It takes two to tango. A lot of the focus is on young women because they are the ones who become pregnant, but they don't become pregnant on their own." Ms Simpson said it was unfair that young men didn't get the same opportunities to learn about sexual health, and that while they came in for a lot of blame, they could not be expected to act responsibly if they were never given the opportunity to learn about responsibility.
"They struggle with the same anxieties about their bodies and have the same insecurities as teenage girls," she said.
Many boys' schools only paid lip-service to sex education, she said. "It is incredibly ad hoc. In some it is very good, but in others the attitude is `sex education - what is it doing in a boys' school?'. " As part of the scheme a video aimed at young men has been produced and will be launched at the end of April. In the coming months the Northern Ireland Family Planning Association is also hoping to appoint three full-time staff to work with young men, with one to be located in Derry.
Ms Simpson said available figures did not show any dramatic increase in the number of babies born to teenage mothers. Because abortion is illegal in the North, unlike Britain, she said it was impossible to speak accurately of teenage births because some girls who travelled to Britain for abortions might give false addresses.
In 1998 in the North there were 1,735 babies born to mothers under 20 and there were 305 recorded abortions for this age group.
This represented just under 20 per cent of all abortions performed in British clinics on women who gave Northern Ireland addresses.
Ms Simpson said young people were being "bombarded with sex messages" from magazines, videos and TV programmes and often came under peer pressure to have sex from both male and female friends. "The one thing young people don't want to hear is `don't' and they will always tend to rebel if they are told not to do something.
"What we say is `only have sex when you feel ready'. If it is coercive or exploitative, get out fast. "We say you shouldn't unless you really want to, and then only when it is safe. And there is nothing wrong with you if you don't feel ready."
The programme takes a personal development approach and encourages young men to respect themselves and their partners.
Topics covered include physical changes in puberty, sexually transmitted diseases and general sexual health.
It also deals with such issues as the impact of alcohol or drugs on decision-making and the impact becoming a father could have on a young man's life or on future relationships.