Slovak 15-year-olds becoming more sexually active

A growing number of 15-year-old schoolchildren are declaring themselves to be sexually active, specifically 14 percent of girls and 18 percent of boys in the given age group, according to international study Health Behaviour in School Aged Children (HBSC). The survey was conducted in 2014 on a sample of some 10,000 students aged 11, 13 and 15 from 130 primary schools across Slovakia. "Being sexually active at this age is early, but these figures are comparable to those seen in a number of European countries", said Pavol Jarčuška of HBSC's national team. He pointed out that almost half of sexually active girls said that they should have waited to have sex until they were older or that it would have been better if their sexual experience hadn't occurred. This was a category in which numbers swelled considerably in comparison to 2010. Conversely, more than half of sexually active boys believe that they had sex at the right time or wish that it had happened even earlier. "The majority of 15-year-olds stated that they were seeing someone over the course of 2014 or had a date", said Andrea Madarasová Gecková of HBSC. Sexual issues are taboo in family discussions for approximately one fifth of schoolchildren, whereas 26 percent of girls and 41 percent of boys conceded that they sought sexual information on the internet. HBSC is one of the first international comprehensive studies that began as an initiative of three countries (United Kingdom, Finland and Norway) in 1983. Gradually, other countries joined in. The study was embraced by the WHO and currently involves more than 40 countries of Europe and North America.