More than half the young women who participated in a survey in Donegal had sex before the age of consent (17), a new report funded by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency finds.
The report, Young Women's Understanding of Their Sexual Health Needs, was carried out for the Letterkenny Women's Centre "to ascertain the range of sexual health needs of young women" in the region.
It surveyed 153 women aged between 17 and 25, with the highest proportion aged 17.
More than half - 51.6 per cent - reported "they first had sex before the age of consent". Just under 10 per cent (9.8 per cent) had sex under the age of 15.
The report tells of "stories of regret, peer pressure, bad timing and emotional stress as consequences of having had sexual intercourse early".
One woman told the survey: "All my friends seemed to be having sex. My boyfriend at the time was pressurising me, telling me to grow up, everyone is doing it. I was curious so ended up doing it. Regretted it ever since."
While 75 per cent reported they had used some form of contraception, the report finds "a huge information gap still exists for young people trying to access reliable information on contraception and sexual health".
Magazines were the main information source of most respondents (29.4 per cent), followed by friends (25 per cent). Only 4.6 per cent learned about sexual health at school.
The biggest factor preventing the women using contraception was cost (39.2 per cent), fear of side-effects, especially weight gain (34.6 per cent), followed by fear of GP reaction. GP surgeries were felt to be known to families and GPs were not trusted to act confidentially. One of the main barriers to young women seeking sexual health advice was the lack of services geared towards their age group, the report says. It recommends the establishment of a sexual health clinic in Letterkenny, aimed at 17-25-year-olds.
The young women found sex education inadequate in terms of timing, content and delivery, and focused too much on the "biological aspects of sex", the report said. None of them reported experiencing an approach to sex education that focused on "both the emotional and biological aspects".
