YES - Mandana Hendessi, policy and campaigns director, YWCA
Research suggests that young people in the UK have become sexually active at a younger age. Forty years ago, the average age for first sex was 20 for men and 21 for women. Today it is 17 for both.
The numbers of young people sexually active by the age of 16 have doubled between 1965 and 1991, with the rise most striking for girls (Social Exclusion Unit 1999). Recent research found that just over a quarter of young women aged 16 to 19 first had sexual intercourse before they were 16.
Given these facts, it is important that young people have access to information and guidance on how to be safe when sexually active, whatever age they may be. For this reason, the YWCA supports the provision of information, guidance and contraceptives to all young people who are sexually active, including those who are under 16 years of age, so as to promote safe sex.
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