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Sexual and Reproductive Health of Adolescents and Youths in Malaysia
The place for first sexual intercourse was
“the bedroom” in about half of the
responses, and male respondents
reported “a hotel” as a close second
choice. The survey also reported that, in
most cases, the partner for the first sexual
intercourse was a “date” or “steady
girlfriend/boyfriend.” About 15% of inschool
males and almost 27% of outof-school
males reported that their first
sexual encounter was with a “prostitute.”
For out-of-school females, 10 out of
22 reported that their first experience
was coerced, with a “stepfather,”
“conman” or “others.”
Besides the above surveys, the National
Health and Morbidity Survey 1996 also
asked
30 000 school-going respondents about
their sexual behaviour, and 1.8% said
they had had sexual intercourse, with
male students twice as likely to be
sexually involved than female
(2.5% versus 1.2%). Of that number,
63.2% were heterosexual, 19.9% were
homosexual, and 9.4% had sex with
prostitutes.
A comparative study of students and
drug rehabilitation centre inmates found
that 6% of students and 54% of inmates
had had intercourse before the age of
20. A study of attendees at one clinic
reported that 22.5% of males and
30.9% of females had had intercourse
before the age of 20. Another study of
100 students aged 15-17 years found that
the incidence was only 2%. The mode
age of sexual debut, 17-18 years, is
probably not different from other similar
countries. Whether or not this has
changed over the years is not clear, since
not many studies on sexual activity have
been conducted on a longitudinal basis.
The common assumption that “most, if
not all births occur within marriage” may
not be true. Evidence shows that the
mean age at first childbirth is 21 years;
while the mean age at first marriage for
females is 23.5 years (1980) and 25 years
(1998). There are also data on births that
record the ages of mothers as
“unknown”. From anecdotal and media
reports on the incidence of abandoned
babies, it is reasonable to postulate that
many of those mothers of “unknown”
age are unmarried young women who
have no recourse to family and other
institutional support, and therefore
abandon their babies hoping that
someone will take better care of them.
Inherent in this phenomenon is the deep
sense of shame related to the societal
sanction placed upon illegitimate births.
As, in almost all cases, the identity of a
woman who has given birth and
abandoned her baby is not known, such
events take place under clandestine
circumstances.
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