Too quick to condemn girls’ use of condoms
JournAIDS
6 October 2011
A slightly quirky article on schoolgirls keeping their socks up with condoms really shows that journalists need to pull their socks up when it comes to basic reporting.
An African Eye News Service (AENS) article replicated for editions of The New Age (TNA) and the Daily Sun reported that schoolgirls in Mpumalanga have fund a nifty new use for condoms, which they use as garters to keep their school socks from pooling around their ankles.
But it seems that the article only lays out half the story, forgetting to ask a number of important questions.
The AENS article includes comment from the TAC and Mpumalanga‘s heath and social development department condemning the girls’ reinvention of the condom.
And while the Mpumalanga officials make a valid point asserting that the young women are in fact wasting government resources, the TAC statement, which says that the misuse of condoms indicates a lack of knowledge around HIV, remains unsupported and unexamined by the article.
Nowhere in the piece does it indicate that the girls do not know what condoms were originally intended for. They could simply have discovered an additional use for the rubbers, other than offering them protection from HIV, other STIs and pregnancy.
But the journalist made no discernible effort to establish whether the girls knew about the protection condoms offer – in spite of clearly having spoken to the girls.
It may be uncomfortable speaking to young women about their sexual savvy, but had the journalist broached the subject, this question might have produced a story that offered some truly valuable insight into the state of safe sex messaging among South African youth.
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