CHILDREN lack the knowledge and confidence to say no to sex or to keep themselves safe as they come under pressure from their peers to experiment, the charity ChildLine says today.

Rather than wait until they are emotionally prepared for sex, children as young as 12 are turning to alcohol to help to get them through losing their virginity. Most are too embarrassed, confused, drunk or illinformed to think about the risks of pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections, so contraception is barely even considered, a charity report says.

Anne Houston, director of ChildLine, which has merged with the NSPCC, said that callers to the charity spoke of lives in which sex and alcohol were far more readily available than information on how to deal with them.

She said that most of the 5,800 calls last year about pregnancy came after young people had engaged in risky sexual behaviour.

Publication today of the ChildLine report coincides with a survey produced jointly by the teen magazine Sugar and the NSPCC, which found that 45 per cent of teenage girls had had their bottom or breasts groped against their wishes. The web survey of 674 Sugar readers revealed an abusive undercurrent to much of their early sexual experimentation.

The ChildLine report is based on 5,843 calls that it received from children about pregnancy last year. Three quarters of callers were 15 or under; most (5,459) were girls.

ChildLine counsellors suggest that children believe that contraception is expensive, and that they do not know where to get free condoms. They also wrongly think that visits to their doctor are not confidential. Some girls say that they do not know how to use condoms; others believe that the Pill will make them fat.

One counsellor said: “Callers tell me that, in their biology lessons, they might be shown how to put a condom on a cucumber, but they aren’t told how to actually go out and get condoms and then use them.”

Ms Houston said that she believed that children who called ChildLine were broadly representative of the population. “One of ChildLine’s strengths is that we know children from all walks of life use the helpline,” she said.

The report calls for a review of personal, social and health education in schools, noting that laws are confusing. Schools are required by law to teach only the biological aspects of sex, contraception and sexually transmitted infections, and these are often covered in science lessons.

Learning about sexuality, relationships, choice, delay, safer sex, risks and pregnancy are only outlined in government guidance.

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