Sweden: Sex Education Interests Young Women in Immigrant Suburbs
Many young women in immigrant suburbs are expected to protect their virginity until they are married. But that does not stop them from being curious about sex and having questions about their own bodies.
"The questions are still the same as when I started," says Maj-Britt Franzén who has worked for 20 years as a social welfare officer at a youth health clinic in Kista, outside Stockholm. "I had groups of girls then and when I asked them what they wanted to talk about they said 'sex, we want to talk about sex'. They are curious about it and that is something that has not changed."
For many of the girls in these areas, there is an expectation that they will be a virgin until the day they get married. However, over the last few years, Maj Britt Franzén and her colleague Marie Ahlsdotter at the youth health clinic, they have noticed that the attitudes are changing.
"Many young people have seen through it long ago," says Marie Ahlsdotter "but they will say that it is something that everybody pretends is still valid, but that hardly anyone lives by. So despite seeing through the charade, they feel forced to live by it."
Maj-Britt Franzén says that when she started 20 years ago, young men would say that they wanted their wife to be a virgin at the wedding day, but that that has now changed. "Now the boys in several of the groups would say, 'no, she does not have to be a virgin' and I could see there had been a change and thought 'yes, finally'.
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Source: SR (English)
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