(AFP) news features

Controversy sparked by a fatwa, or religious decree, requiring Muslim brides and grooms to be tested for the AIDS virus has prompted calls to introduce sex education in schools.

For years, the government has held up plans to teach children about the birds and the bees as sex is largely perceived as a taboo subject in this predominantly Muslim country.

But a move by the southern Johor state government Nov 13 to impose mandatory pre-marital HIV tests on Muslim couples put the spotlight on the need to educate society on safe sex and the disease.

The Johor state fatwa requires Muslim couples to test for HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, to prevent it from being passed on to children.

Couples must be tested in state hospitals three months before marriage. If a prospective bride or groom tests positive for HIV/AIDS, however, they can still go ahead with the wedding if their partner is willing.

Several other states have also said they may follow Johor's ruling as the number of HIV patients was on the rise.

But activists and health experts cried foul, saying forced testing would only set back the battle against AIDS and that education was the only key to prevention.

Ivy Josiah, executive director of the Women's Aid Organisation, said sex education had been delayed in schools because it was seen as "culturally not right."

'No political will'

"There is no political will because there is a big mistake that sex education is about how to have sex," she said.

"There is a lot of unnecessary caution because educators and policy makers themselves have hang-ups."

Josiah urged the government not to be "prickly and precious" about sex education, noting that Malaysian men were among the highest users of the anti-impotence pill Viagra and there were rising cases of abandoned babies and single mothers.

"Society is getting information from pornography and blue tapes, from all the wrong sources. We must teach our young people about body awareness and not make sex more elusive or desirable," she said.

"It's time for our policy makers to change their attitudes and get over their own prejudices."

This view was echoed by Christopher Lee, who heads a special infectious diseases clinic at the government-run Kuala Lumpur Hospital.

Lee said the health ministry in 1992 produced and distributed video tapes on HIV/AIDS awareness to high schools but few were ever shown because "teachers themselves think HIV/AIDS is taboo."

He said the government has set up educational clubs in schools in the past few years to tutor adolescents on HIV/AIDS prevention but this was inadequate.

Sex education must be made part of the school curriculum to be effective, he added.

Regular Viagra user

At his clinic, Lee is treating some 2,000 HIV patients of whom about 60 percent contracted the disease through sex, and others through sharing of needles while using drugs.

Most of them are in their 20s, but the youngest patient is a 16-year-old schoolgirl and the oldest is a 74-year-old man who walks with a stick but is a regular Viagra user.

The figure is just the tip of the iceberg.

As of April, 40,049 people in Malaysia were confirmed HIV-infected and around 5,000 new cases are detected each year. The government spends RM22 million annually on HIV/AIDS prevention.

Mehrun Siraj, an Islamic law expert, said religion and culture were not a barrier to sex education in schools because Islam required it.

She said the government previously delayed it amid fears of reprisal from Islamic clerics but after the clerics gave approval, they now worried about the title of the subject and its content.

"Sex education is extremely important in Islam. The goverment should introduce it in the school curriculum from primary school," she said, adding it can be called "life skills" to avoid any awkardness.