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Pre-teens Thailand's new danger group

From CNN Correspondent Aneesh Raman

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A worker packs condoms at a factory in Chonburi province.
SPECIAL REPORT
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Thailand
AIDS (Disease)

CHANG MAI, Thailand (CNN) -- "Come to Thailand," the saying goes, "for sun, sand and sex."

Prostitution has long been a big business in Thailand, but now casual sex is spreading throughout society, particularly among young people.

In the northern city of Chiang Mai, though, there's a dangerous twist.

Not only is sex easy to find, but the city also has one of the highest prevalence rates of HIV in Asia, and you are never too young to learn about sex.

At one village primary school the morning starts with the national anthem and is followed by a lesson on condoms.

AIDS awareness campaigners are concerned that the age group is getting younger in terms of those getting infected.

"I believe that it will be common for Thailand that we will have the younger people that are HIV infected when they are about 15 years old," campaigner Dr. Fongkaew says.

"We have already found a girl who received an HIV infection when she was about 12 years old."

That pre-teens could become the next danger group in Thailand drove Dr. Fongkaew to start a program that travels to elementary schools teaching children as young as nine about safe sex.

"It's not too young for us to prepare them," he says.

"I think it's very important for us to prepare them to be ready to have really accurate information and have understanding about the sexual issues."

Part of the lesson is hearing from someone living with HIV. One 20-year-old -- who didn't want his name used -- began lecturing others on safe sex and AIDS when he contracted the disease.

"I knew all about AIDS," he says.

"I learned about AIDS about sex about protection. But at some point I thought that sex is very common and I didn't think about protection, I just looked at how the person looked."

The young man has since turned what some regard as a death sentence into a life lesson, deciding to help others.

"I was in shock and I thought, 'I'm going to die soon'."

"Frankly speaking I am about to die. And two, three days after that I came to terms with it and I lead my normal life, I said everybody has to die someday."

"What I have left in my life I should do the best for society," he says.

One in 60 people out of the country's population of 62 million are infected with HIV. About one in 10 of those are between the ages of 15 and 24.

In today's world, where kids are growing up surrounded by sexual content, the idea in northern Thailand is that education is the backbone of prevention.

The question they raise is that if sex exists in many aspects of a kid's world, why shouldn't it be in the schools.


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