National Condom Week to launch summer long campaign to encourage condom use among young women

EMPOWERING young women to insist that their partners wear condoms during sex will be the theme of National Condom Week, which heralds the start of a summer long safer sex campaign, sponsored by Durex and endorsed by leading sexual health charities.

Running from 8 – 13 May, this year’s National Condom Week will launch a summer-long campaign called ‘He Says, You Say’. The campaign has been designed to get young people thinking about safer sex and, in particular, to equip young women aged between 16 – 24 with answers to excuses their partners may come up with to avoid wearing a condom.

Via the website, www.hesaysyousay.co.uk, users are encouraged to log on, listen to reasons men might use for not wearing condoms, hear suggested responses and enter their own – with a chance to win a Club 18-30 holiday if they do so.

Major high street retailers will be offering money off deals and special offers on Durex condoms and fashion chain New Look has agreed to display campaign posters in its changing rooms in stores across the country. To reinforce the female empowerment message, Atomic Kitten star Liz McClarnon has been chosen to front the campaign.

The campaign theme was devised following a survey among healthcare professionals who logged on to www.durexchange.co.uk in January this year. More than 200 healthcare professionals completed the questionnaire and those who logged on to give their views included student nurses, practice nurses, GUM nurses, health advisers, school nurses, GPs and pharmacists.

Findings showed that men claim that condoms spoil the enjoyment of sex, with nearly 160 healthcare professionals reporting they had heard this excuse from their male patients. Healthcare professionals added that the most common reason given by women for not using condoms was that their partner refused to do so.

Respondents also said they wanted advice on how to empower their patients to say ‘no’ to unprotected sex.

Campaign materials such as posters and postcards have been created on the basis of this research and thousands have already been sent out to family planning centres, clinics and surgeries and the resources have been written in a style and language intended to appeal to the target audience. A total of one million postcards and 800,000 condoms will be distributed throughout the safer sex campaign.

Healthcare professionals are being encouraged to log on to www.durexchange.co.uk to register for ‘toolkits’ and, throughout the campaign, will be able to register for extra supplies of materials through this website.

Martyn Ward, managing director for Durex, said: "The answers provided by the healthcare professionals were invaluable as they provided a starting point for the formulation of the ‘He Says, You Say’ summer campaign.

"We are confident that healthcare professionals will find these materials invaluable tools that can be used in their clinics to persuade young people to use condoms when having sex."

Public Health Minister Caroline Flint MP, along with sexual health charities Brook, Marie Stopes International, National AIDS Trust, Terrence Higgins Trust and the young person’s advice charity, YouthNet, who run thesite.org, have all endorsed the campaign to promote good sexual health among women.

The Minister said: ""It's so important that people learn to think about the consequences of unprotected sex.

"We are working hard to alert young people to the risks of Sexually Transmitted Infections such as chlamydia which we know can lead to infertility problems further down the line.

"I hope that National Condom Week, with its support from a cross-section of leading sexual health organisations, will raise further awareness amongst young people of the need to take responsibility for their own sexual health."

Leading sexual health charities Brook, Marie Stopes International, National AIDS Trust, Terrence Higgins Trust and the young person’s advice charity YouthNet, who run thesite.org, have all endorsed the campaign to promote good sexual health among young women.

National Condom Week has been a Durex-sponsored event since 1997, however this is the first year that Durex has rolled out a summer long safer sex campaign.

(9/5/06)