Smarter about sex, through cartoons

Smarter about sex, through cartoons

SOCIAL & LIFESTYLE
Smarter about sex, through cartoons
Teenage Mom on Line Webtoon. Photos courtesy of Line Webtoon

Sex education is without doubt essential for youths, to help them learn about their sexuality and sexual rights. And it should be communicated through a medium that can draw their attention. One way to achieve this is through cartoons.

With that in mind, Unicef has joined hands with Line Webtoon, a digital comics platform, to launch a special online cartoon series serving this purpose.

The series is called "Roo Sak Nid Korn Kid Ja Rak" -- which, translated, means "Educate yourself before engaging in sex". The series contains three episodes with the objective of informing adolescents how to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The series also provides information about places to receive professional advice and youth-friendly services.

The story uses the main characters from the popular Thai-language cartoon series Teenage Mom, launched last year on the Line Webtoon platform, where it has more than 1.6 million followers. Teenage Mom portrays the lives of adolescent characters as they encounter new emotions and sexual experiences.

"While adolescents enjoy reading online cartoons like Teenage Mom, we need to give them access to the information they need to make informed decisions, and which will enable them to lead safe and healthy sexual lives," said Unicef Thailand Deputy Representative Valerie Taton. According to the Public Health Ministry, Thailand was ranked 15th in Asia and 5th in South East Asia for teen pregnancies. The average figure was 52 pregnancies for every 1,000 females aged 15-19. In some cities, such as Bangkok, the rate of teenage pregnancies reached about 75 for every 1,000 females. The figure is higher than the average of 50 across the globe. Earlier this year, another study showed that sex education in Thai schools is also inadequate. It found that 90% of teen fathers are unaware of how to use a condom, while 80% of teenage mothers do not know how to take the morning-after pill correctly. Unicef and Line Webtoon expect that the special series will draw the attention of teens and bring them direct messages of sex education.

The first episode of Teenage Mom launched on Aug 20 can be assessed at webtoons.com. The second episode, just released on Saturday, is also available there.

-- Karnjana Karnjanatawe

The cartoon was also made into a TV series that airs at 7pm every Saturday exclusively on Line TV.

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