DIPAYAL: Youths from Doti, one of the far-flung districts in Nepal, have openly started talking about sex and are using contraceptives as a preventive measure against HIV and AIDS. Talking about sex and using contraceptives as preventive measures against HIV and AIDS was a social taboo in rural Doti, which had long baffled aid agencies and government health workers to address health concerns.

Local youths, who were extremely shy talking about sex and the use of contraceptives are increasingly using condoms these days, health workers said.

What has changed the attitude of the people is the increased awareness among the rural youths brought about by a government campaign few years back with the slogan “Take condoms as per your requirement,” said Mahendra Kumar Shrestha, senior administrator at the Doti district Public Health Office (DPHO).

He talks of success

of the campaign and said

that some 300,000 condoms are consumed in the district annually.

The dramatic increase in the use of the condoms,

however, could also be attributed to the rising cases of

HIV and AIDS infections amongst migrant workers to India, in the district

Many locals were simply wondering about the meaning of the slogan when the campaign was first introduced by the government. But as time passed by, they came to know what it meant, Shrestha said.

In recent days, even children, notwithstanding their age, have begun to demand condoms, much to the astonishment of the local authority and aid organisations.

‘The slogan has become so popular that even children, want to take condoms home, taking it to be balloons,’ Shrestha added.

The awareness brought about by the catchy slogan - take condoms as per your requirements - has nonetheless attracted the rural women.

“Rural women are so conscious about the use of condoms and knowledge about HIV and AIDS that they do not allow their husbands returning from India and abroad to have sex without condom,” health workers said. ‘The first thing that a wife asks her husband when he returns home is whether he brought condoms,’ a DPHO official, said.

‘Every morning we keep large number of condoms in an open box in our office premises, however, by the evening , the box is empty,’ health workers, said, adding, ‘We provide them freely.”

Meantime, Sunil Sarki, an HIV/AID- infected resident from Sanagaun, said the publicity for the use of condoms should be further intensified.