Dear Counselor, I have a friend who is 17 who has a girl friend of 15 and they want to start having sex. What problems shall they get and how can I advise them?
Submitted by Counselor at SchoolNet on 2nd January, 2009
Thank you for the concern about your friends. You must be a true friend to worry and want to help. Naturally, we can never predict the exact “problems” that our friends will get but we could consider and explore certain general challenges and ways in which you could help in that kind of situation.
Your friends could contract sexually transmitted infections like Gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV/AIDS, and more. They could also end up with a pregnancy, in case they engage in unprotected sexual intercourse or miss use a condom.
Your friends are also at a risk of building the foundation of their relationship on sex performance, which would lead to a quick break up should one of them not match up to the other’s satisfaction.
Your friend could even be accused by the girls’ parents for defilement because the girls is less than 18 years. According to the Uganda law, have sex with a girl of less than 18 years is illegal wthether consensual or not. Defilement carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
With a few of those sample challenges, you as a friend could share with them more knowledge on the risks of engaging in sex, and help them preoccupy themselves with activities that would divert their attention from the desire to engage in sex.
Dear friend, I appreciate your concern about your friend and here are the likely problems your friend and his girlfriend may get.
In the first place a girl of 15 years is not developed enough to start having sex so there is a likelihood of rapture of the vagina which may expose her to diseases like cancer.
Secondly having unprotected sex may lead to aquiring sexually transmitted diseases like ghonnorea, syphillis and HIV which may lead the two to early death or even sexual dysfunction at a later age.
There is a likelihood of having a pregnancy which will lead to termination of the studies of the two especially if the parents of the girl are very strict.
Lastly the boy though 17 may be imprisoned for defilement.
Otherwise I wish to comment that there is still a lot of time for sex at the right time and age.
Tell your friend to abstain and wait until the right time