COMMENTARY
Sanitsuda Ekachai
If you don't think Aids and violence against women are related, think again - particularly if you have teenage daughters.
We like to think that we have done quite a good job keeping an eye on our girls. But let's see if this piece of statistics does not make your heart skip a beat.
According to the Public Health Ministry, five people become HIV-positive every minute around the world. Nearly half of them are young people aged between 15 and 24 years, and the number of young girls is two times higher than the male youngsters.
Why is that, you may wonder. The health authorities blame it on early sexuality caused by easy access to sexually arousing media and unprotected sex. But this explanation is far from satisfactory. If access to pornography is really the cause, it should follow that the more one is exposed to it, the higher risk they have of HIV infection.
The statistics say more than 82% of teenage boys watch pornographic videos while 48% of teenage girls do so. Why then do twice the number of teenage girls become HIV-positive? And if unprotected sex is the culprit, then the incidence of HIV infection should be the same for both young men and women. It can only be concluded that the boys slept with more than one girl, so more girls got infected.
Mention violence against women, and most people will think about rape, wife beating and sexual harassment. Few of us in Thailand think that our double sexual standards which endorse male polygamy is also a serious form of violence against women. Not only because it hurts women's dignity and feelings. But also because it kills.
With the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women just behind us and the World Aids Day a few days ahead, it might seem that the public health authorities' current safe sex campaign to reduce HIV infection among the youngsters is exactly what we need.
But is it?
True, telling the youngsters to practice safe sex is killing two birds with one stone: unwanted pregnancy and Aids.
But the safe sex campaigns will go nowhere when it ignores our girls' fear of making their boyfriends think of them as sexually experienced if they ask for or insist on protected sex.
The fear stems from our deeply-rooted sexual double standards that tell women to be asexual while equating sexual promiscuity with manhood.
It also grows out of women's upbringing under patriarchy which tells women to submit themselves to men's pleasures and to suppress their own needs and put those of their loved ones first.
There is nothing wrong with that if men do their part under the same rules. But when the rules of self-sacrifice and fidelity apply only to women, it is sheer oppression. And brainwashing women to accept it as part of being a good woman is violence against women, plain and simple.
Higher incidence of Aids infection among young girls is only one of the many manifestations of violence against women. If we really want to protect our children from a dangerous values system that puts the lives of our boys and girls at risk, we must go beyond parroting safe sex to the kids. The puyai must themselves show by example, by condemning sexual double standards which are at the heart of gender violence.
Do we have any hope for that? Do we, when the big boss at the Social Development and Human Security Ministry who opened the campaign to end violence against women, was himself tainted with a sexual harassment scandal?
Do we, when there was no public outrage after the prime minister admitted it was himself in the video clip which questioned his fidelity?
Discussing and encouraging protected sex is a step in the right direction, but don't blame the kids if they do not listen. Blame it on the puyai's hypocrisy.
Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor(Outlook), Bangkok Post.
Email: sanitsudae@bangkokpost.co.th
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