Good clean fun: Scouting tradition, circa 1962
SCOUT LEADERS TO GIVE SEX ADVICE AND HAND OUT 'EMERGENCY CONDOMS' TO CHILDREN AS YOUNG AS TEN
Parents waving their children off to Scout camp may soon have more to worry about than the youngsters swapping ghost stories after dark.
In a move that has alarmed traditionalists, the Scout Association is to introduce sex education for its young members.
Leaders will be able to give confidential contraceptive advice to under-16s and even hand out emergency condoms on trips.
The Association insists the information will help Scouts resist peer pressure to have sex before they are ready.
But critics claim it will encourage boys and girls to become sexually active earlier.
Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: 'This will horrify a lot of parents.
'These things have nothing to do with Scouting. They should be sticking to the traditional activities of camp fires and sing- songs instead of learning about sexually transmitted diseases and emergency contraception.'
The advice that leaders can give is outlined in a factsheet published today by the Scout Association, which has 60,000 girl members and 400,000 boys and young men.
Scouts aged ten-and-a-half to 14 will be able to discuss where to get contraception and pregnancy testing and how to find sexual health clinics.
Boys and girls aged 14 and above may be taken on tours of sexual health clinics and learn about diseases such as gonorrhoea, syphilis and chlamydia.
The factsheet makes it clear to leaders that it is 'only acceptable to have condoms/femedoms available to young people in line with the Fraser guidelines'.
These guidelines give under-16s the right to have confidential advice about contraception without parental consent if certain criteria are met.
They state that an 'adult should only provide contraception if they believe the young person is very likely to begin having intercourse with or without contraception'.
A Scout Association spokesman attempted to play down the implications of the factsheet on Sunday, insisting that leaders will not want to hand out contraceptives as they are not health care professionals.
He said: 'The safety and well-being of the young people in our care is paramount and it's not appropriate to have sexual relations in the activities that we run.
'You don't go to camp assuming young people will have sex.'
(Mail Online)
P.S. What is an 'emergency' condom?
The Leaders are not there to teach that subject. The scouts are at the camp 'to be prepared' on how to make a lean-to, finding food, lighting a fire and finding ways out of forests. In other words, how to survive should it ever become necessary. The subject of sex is everywhere these days and I suspect most children have seen and heard about it on TV by the time they are ten.