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More children are having sex or becoming otherwise physically intimate with their dates, according to a new survey.

 Underage sex is now as prevalent among pupils in Form One and Two as it was five years ago among older children in Form Three to Seven, a report released yesterday by the Family Planning Association showed.

 Some 923 boys and 940 girls as young as 12, in Form One and Two, were interviewed for the survey which has been conducted every five years since 1981, along with 2,175 boys and 1,941 girls in the higher classes.

 Among the junior pupils, 30 per cent had gone on dates. Six per cent of boys and four per cent of girls said they had had sexual intercourse.

 About nine per cent of the students had been caressed on dates, 28 per cent were embraced and 22 per cent had been kissed.

 While the 1996 questionnaire was the first to be given to young students, the association found more students in the higher grades, especially girls, had become more open to dating since 1991.

 About eight per cent of the boys and six per cent of girls in Form Three to Form Seven had had sexual intercourse, up from six per cent and four per cent five years earlier.

 More than half of the girls were 15 years old or even younger.

 Curiosity and romance were seen as the two main reasons for having sex for the first time, though 52 per cent of sexually active girls did so because their partners asked.

 More than 30 per cent of youngsters said they accepted abortion, while condoms were the main method of contraception used by 66 per cent of boys and 55 per cent of the girls.

 But the acceptance of less reliable methods of contraception such as coitus interruptus - backed by 39 per cent of boys and 52 per cent of girls - worried the association.

 Association executive director Dr Susan Fan said: 'We have to be cautious. A lot of improvement can still be made.'  She said lessons on human relationships, dating behaviour and how to say 'no' should be introduced in schools.

 All the pupils surveyed said they found the seminars giving information on a variety of different aspects of sex useful.

 Friends, teachers and the media were the most common sources of students' knowledge of sex.

 About 66 per cent of boys and 39 per cent of girls had seen pornographic movies and 57 per cent of boys and 34 per cent of girls had bought pornographic comics.



Younger children drawn to sex