Javascript Disabled Detected

You currently have javascript disabled. Several functions may not work. Please re-enable javascript to access full functionality.

Search Articles

The Importance of Attitudes - UNICEF

08 Aug 2012 07:42 PM | Malcolm Boura in Censorship

The Netherlands reduced teenage pregnancy rates by a factor of four, in little more than a generation, by following the evidence. Why then is the UK doing the opposite?

In the UK there has been little progress, probably because dogma and ideology has largely prevented similar measures to The Netherlands. All the indications are that the current (August 2012) moves to increase simplistic censorship of the internet will make matters even worse. Our children deserve evidence based policy making. All of the evidence that is, not just the evidence that supports one brand of ideology. The full report is available from www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/repcard3e.pdf

There is also a pdf version of this article.

From “A League Table of Teenage Births in Rich Nations”, UNICEF, 2001, page 21.
Extract made by British Naturism, August 2012

The Netherlands, on the other hand, not only has one of the lowest teenage birth rates in Europe but also one of the lowest teenage abortion rates in the developed world.
This is a remarkable achievement, summed up by the position of the Netherlands in Figures 8 and 13. Whilst experiencing the same socio-sexual transformation as other advanced Western economies, the Dutch have managed to reduce teenage births by 72 per cent in 30 years (Sweden and Denmark have achieved very similar reductions but have teenage abortion rates that are approximately four times higher). And as it is clear that this is an achievement that springs not only from the particularities of culture or history but from conscious policy, it is to the Netherlands that most attention has been directed in the search for ‘what works’.

In general, studies of the Dutch experience have concluded that the underlying reason for success has been the combination of a relatively inclusive society with more open attitudes towards sex and sex education, including contraception. This has paved the way for sexual relationships to be discussed at an early age – before barriers of embarrassment can be raised and before sex education can be interpreted as sending a signal that the time has come to start having sex. According to the conclusions of a 1994 international conference under the title of ‘Can we learn from the Dutch?’, for example, young people in the Netherlands “feel comfortable discussing sexuality in a warm, mutually supporting atmosphere” in which “requests for contraceptive services are not associated with shame or embarrassment” and in which “the media is willing to carry explicit messages designed for young people about contraceptive services”.The result is that using contraceptives, as one teenage survey respondent put it, “is as ingrained as not going through a red light.”

‘Openness’ about sex and contraception, commented on by many observers of the Netherlands, is obviously difficult to capture in statistics (although one study has concluded that teenage boys in the Netherlands are two to three times more likely to discuss contraception with their sexual partners than teenagers in the United Kingdom, and that parents are twice as likely to discuss sex with their children). But it appears to be a significant element in the Dutch achievement. Whereas contraceptives and contraceptive advice appear to be just as freely available in many other OECD countries, the atmosphere surrounding contraception is markedly different in the Netherlands. One Europe-wide study of ‘what works’, for example, has concluded that “the spirit in which sex education is offered and delivered appears to be more important than the specific approach adopted.”

Abridged from “A League Table of Teenage Births in Rich Nations”, UNICEF, 2001, page 21.
Abridged extract made by British Naturism, August 2012

The Netherlands … the lowest teenage birth rates in Europe ... one of the lowest teenage abortion rates in the developed world. … the Dutch have managed to reduce teenage births by 72 per cent in 30 years ... not only from ... culture or history but from conscious policy ...

… reason … inclusive society ... open attitudes towards sex and sex education. … sexual relationships … discussed at an early age – before barriers of embarrassment can be raised and before sex education can be interpreted as sending a signal that the time has come to start having sex. ... young people in the Netherlands “feel comfortable discussing sexuality in a warm, mutually supporting atmosphere” in which “requests for contraceptive services are not associated with shame or embarrassment” and in which “the media is willing to carry explicit messages designed for young people about contraceptive services”. The result is that using contraceptives, as one teenage survey respondent put it, “is as ingrained as not going through a red light.”

‘Openness’ ... teenage boys in the Netherlands are two to three times more likely to discuss contraception with their sexual partners than teenagers in the United Kingdom, and that parents are twice as likely to discuss sex with their children ... Whereas contraceptives and contraceptive advice appear to be just as freely available in many other OECD countries, the atmosphere ... is markedly different in the Netherlands. … “the spirit in which sex education is offered and delivered appears to be more important than the specific approach adopted.”