A laptop is placed on the table, showing an interview with our CEO, Shamin Mohamed Jr.

Media

Check out the buzz around LetsStopAIDS

Featured

Cover Image for CBC article on teens condom use low

September 11, 2024

Most teens didn't use a condom the last time they had sex. That worries health officials

The bowl of free condoms in the student office might need to be dusted off. A recent report based on surveys of 15-year-olds in 42 countries, including Canada, shows what the World Health Organization called a worrying decline in the use of condoms , which provide protection from unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). In Canada, roughly two-thirds of teens surveyed who said they had sex in the 2021-22 school year didn't use a condom the last time they had intercourse. That decline in condom use, down two percentage points for boys and four for girls since 2014, occurred as teens saw a gap in sex-ed lessons during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, health experts told CBC News. In August, the Public Health Agency of Canada noted rates of  chlamydia, gonorrhea and infectious syphilis have all been trending upward. Canada also saw a nearly 25 per cent increase in new HIV diagnoses in 2022 over 2021, with Saskatchewan and Manitoba leading with the highest rates. While the federal reports don't provide an age breakdown, Canadians can gain some insight through the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey, the basis for the latest WHO report. The survey is an ongoing cross-national research study of youth aged 11 to 15 to gain insight into their well-being, health behaviours and social contexts. Opt-in sex education policies coming to Alberta classrooms this fall, province says Though condom use has dropped, the percentage of teens who are sexually active — one in five, according to the WHO report — has been pretty stable since 2014.    Given the findings of the report, the founder of LetsStopAIDS said it's clear Canada needs to reform sexual education province by province .  The youth-driven charity runs sexual health workshops for teens and young adults in Ontario and Saskatchewan. In those workshops, youth can play games, ask questions and openly talk about sexuality and their health. "If our political parties are not interested to have discussions about our youth and their sexual journey, this will continue to be under the carpet," said Shamin Mohamed Jr., the group's founder and director. Mohamed notes Canada now ranks at the bottom of G7 nations in preventing new HIV infections, which he said "makes no sense." He attributed it to a lack of accessible and affordable prevention and treatment, particularly in rural areas. Sex-ed has increasingly come under attack in recent years because of the false premise that it encourages sexual behaviour in youth, said Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO Europe regional director, who was involved in the report. "Unfortunately, when you get that kind of political pushback about sexual health education, that means that young people who may be making decisions about being sexually active … are not given the information they need," said Elizabeth Saewyc, director of the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia. https://res.cloudinary.com/letsstopaids/image/upload/v1726071536/LetsStopAIDS%20Website/Media/LetsStopAIDS-Media-News-CBC-Elizabeth-Saewyc.avif Both secondary school educators and health professionals need to provide sexual health information geared toward teens, said Elizabeth Saewyc, a nursing professor. (Shots by Shobhit) Saewyc said young people need culturally relevant and medically accurate information about safer sex and consent. Another key piece is making confidential health care more accessible — making sure youth can get affordable condoms or prescriptions for birth control pills and other forms of contraception. "If you have income challenges or you need parents to provide funding or to help with that prescription, that's going to be a barrier," said Saewyc, who started her career as a nurse working with pregnant adolescents. In the new report, Canada's rate on use of birth control pills was unchanged, she said, with 36 per cent of female respondents using it. Ivano Decotiis, 18, of Mississauga, Ont., said the teens he knows don't view condoms in a positive light. "STI prevention and pregnancy prevention now is seen as preventable through other means, through medication and through abortion access," Decotiis said. "Condom usage is never discussed or talked about. It's just not something that is in teenage consciousness." More misconceptions online During the pandemic, myths and misconceptions about sex flourished, said Jessica Wood, who conducts research about those aged 18 to 24 for the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada. Youth turned to each other for information, Wood said, when classes stopped, sexual and reproductive health clinics closed and school nurses or social workers weren't available. An STI 'morning-after' pill? What you need to know about DoxyPEP — and who can get it Nova Scotia launches take-home STI testing kit, a first in Atlantic Canada "I do think we are seeing more misinformation online about sexual health," she said. "We've seen over the years that the percentage of people who say they've used a condom the last time they had penis/vagina sex has dropped along with the percentage of people who say they are concerned about sexually transmitted infections." https://res.cloudinary.com/letsstopaids/image/upload/v1726071536/LetsStopAIDS%20Website/Media/LetsStopAIDS-Media-News-CBC-Elizabeth-Saewyc.avif Both secondary school educators and health professionals need to provide sexual health information geared toward teens, said Elizabeth Saewyc, a nursing professor. (Shots by Shobhit) Since not all sexually transmitted infections have symptoms, people may unknowingly pass the infection on to new or existing partners if they're not using a barrier form of protection.  Barriers include condoms or dental dams which can be combined with medication like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) pills, which prevent HIV, or doxyPEP , which prevents other sexually transmitted infections. But prevention campaigns may not have kept up, the experts say. Health professionals also need to "up our game" on providing better, more consistent information that's non-judgmental — and not just during school hours, Saewyc suggested. Also critical is making protection accessible, experts told CBC — such as providing condoms in free vending machines in public washrooms. "We cannot victimize and shame young people for having sex," Mohamed said. "I think understanding and listening is something that we, as a country, can do much more."

Read moreRead more
Global News - Condom Use Declining Youth

news - August 30, 2024

Condom use among teens in ‘alarming decline’, WHO says as STI rates rise

By Sean Previl: Global News.

A rise in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unplanned pregnancies are top of mind for the World Health Organization after it released a new report showing condom use among adolescents has been on an “alarming decline” in the past decade. The data, published Thursday , comes from a survey of more than 242,000 15-year-olds across 42 countries between 2014 and 2022. Of those sexually active 15-year-olds surveyed, one in five boys and 15 per cent of girls reported having sex in 2022 — a number that the report notes has not grown since 2014. But while that number has stayed stable, the report showed that the boys reported using condoms 61 per cent of the time, down from 70 per cent in 2014, while the girls reported using them 57 per cent of the time compared to 63 per cent. The report noted 30 per cent of adolescents reported not using either a condom or a contraceptive pill in their last sexual encounter. In Canada, just 63 per cent of girls and 61 per cent of boys reported using a condom in their last sexual intercourse. “Are we providing them enough access so that they don’t have barriers in their way?” Shamin Mohamed Jr., founder and president of LetsStopAIDS, told Global News. “I think there’s a wake-up call that’s needed not just by our political parties, but us as a community to come together and say we want our youth to be best informed, to make the best decisions with the tools they have.” The “alarming decline” found by the WHO in condom use follows another notable series of declines between 2014 and 2018, when use reported among boys dropped by nine per cent and use reported among girls dropped by six per cent. “There is a need for sustained educational and health interventions to promote condom use, combined with other highly effective contraceptive methods,” the WHO urged. Condom use also varied by country, with Albanian girls seeing the lowest rate at 24 per cent while Serbia saw use at 81 per cent. Boys used condoms the least in Sweden with about 20 per cent wrapping up, while 77 per cent did so in Switzerland. Canada’s ranking put it roughly midway through the listing of countries, while Canada was also one of the countries where there was a “significant decrease” reported among girls who reported using the contraceptive pill. For girls, a significant decrease was observed in Belgium (French) and Canada, and a significant increase in Czechia, Ireland, Malta and Portugal. Among boys, reported contraceptive pill use decreased in Canada but increased in Malta, United Kingdom (Scotland) and United Kingdom (Wales). The WHO notes unprotected sex can lead to unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and a higher risk of STIs. But there remain barriers to use, experts say. “They don’t always work because people can’t use them, they don’t use them, they don’t want to use them,” Patrick O’Byrne, a nurse practitioner at Ottawa Public Health’s sexual health clinic, told Global News. Where do STI rates stand now? Data from the Public Health Agency of Canada shows as of 2022, STI rates were on the rise following a dip in numbers in 2020 — a decrease sexual health experts say may be due to fewer people getting tested than just less people having sex. ⁠ The data does not separate by age group. Chlamydia rates sat at about 299.12 cases per 100,000 people as of 2022, an increase from the 278.88 seen in 2020. Gonorrhea was up from 81.13 in 2020, sitting at 92.34. Syphilis, however, only dropped slightly in 2020, but the bacteria has increased 107 per cent from its previous high in 2019 to 48.74 cases, and O’Byrne said he’s not surprised. “Going back some 20 years of practice, we would have seen in Ottawa a single new case of infectious syphilis every month and now it’s probably every one to two days,” he said. PHAC only has data up to 2022, but some provinces’ more recent numbers show the cases haven’t stopped rising. Syphilis cases in B.C. in 2023, for example, soared to 2,067 from 1,067 in 2019 and the number among 15 to 19-year-olds jumped 207 per cent in 2023 to 43 cases, up from 14 in 2019. Ontario’s gonorrhea cases rose to 14,146 in 2023, a 20-per cent increase from 2022. In Nova Scotia, meanwhile, 2,730 cases of chlamydia were reported last year, compared to 2,281 in 2022. Can sex-ed help? The WHO says the data underscores the need for comprehensive sexual education, yet warns some nations have claimed it “encourages sexual behaviour.” Abbey Ferguson, Halifax Sexual Health Centre’s executive director, told Global News last week that backlash against such education is concerning, but stresses that knowledge can make you better informed. “Sex education that you got as a young person directly impacts the type of sexual health precautions that you use as an adult in the ways that you understand the systems and how to get tested,” she said. In its report, the WHO urged that in addition to better sexual education, policy makers, educators and health-care providers should work to enhance access to youth-friendly sexual health services and conduct further research to identify the “underlying reasons” for the decline in condom use. “It’s (condoms) a simple tool, a tool that can fit in your pocket, that you can bring with you and it actually gives the opportunity for confidence, for young people to feel that if they are going to be in a situation that they could truly take ownership of themselves,” Mohamed Jr. said. “Let’s be frank, I think they’ll still be going forward with that sexual activity, with or without that tool.”

Students learning about Sex-Ed

releases - June 26, 2024

Make Sex-Ed Positive! LetsStopAIDS Launches Nationwide Campaign at Toronto Pride

By LetsStopAIDS.

Toronto Pride Charity of Choice, LetsStopAIDS, surveyed over 3,000 youth nationwide from 2022 to 2024 and uncovered a critical need for reform in Sexual Education in Canada. Alarmingly, two-thirds of the youth interviewed for our  Sex Lives Report stated that sex-ed had failed them, with one-third reporting that it left them feeling scared to have sex. Moreover, only 23% of young Canadians reported using a condom during sex—a significant 30% drop from 2020. Even more concerning, 80% of sexually active youth are not seeking testing for STIs, and 27% of those diagnosed with an STI do not seek treatment. In relation to Pride, only 34% of youth recall learning about sexuality in high school, and just 19% about gender identity. These alarming statistics underscore the urgent need for comprehensive sex-ed reform. "As one of this year's Charity of Choice for Toronto Pride, we are launching 'Make Sex-Ed Positive!' and calling on Ontario's Minister of Education, Todd Smith, to support comprehensive sexual education reform in the province. We need to make sex education a positive, educational experience for youth through comprehensive sex-ed reform,” stated Shamin Mohamed Jr., President of LetsStopAIDS. In Canada, the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) continues to pose a significant threat to the well-being of youth. Denying access to essential education denies them their right to health, information, and protection. Comprehensive sex-ed fosters an environment of positivity, inclusivity and respect, free from stigma and discrimination. “Making sex-ed positive encourages youth to understand their bodies, relationships, and the importance of consent, helping to build a society where every individual can make informed and safe choices about their sexual health. Ensuring that all youth across Canada have access to sex-ed is a crucial step in safeguarding their future and promoting equality and human rights.” Stated Tatiana Goulart, National Manager of LetsStopAIDS. 80% of sexually active youth are not seeking testing for STIs, and 27% of young people diagnosed with an STI do not seek treatment. As one of the Charities of Choice for Toronto Pride, LetsStopAIDS is highlighting these alarming trends among youth and calling on the Ontario Minister of Education to support comprehensive sex-ed reform in Ontario.  LetsStopAIDS will extend this campaign across Canada, reaching Montreal Pride, Winnipeg Pride, and more . You can support this vital cause by signing our petition  here . LetsStopAIDS is Canada's largest youth-driven HIV charity. Since 2004, LetsStopAIDS has encouraged youth leadership as a way to accelerate the HIV response globally. With 10+ global projects, LetsStopAIDS implements youth-led educational initiatives, research, community engagement, and skills development programmes. 

The 53rd meeting of UNAIDS' Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) in Geneva, Switzerland

releases - December 14, 2023

LetsStopAIDS, Canada's largest Youth-HIV charity, is elected to represent North America at UNAIDS

By LetsStopAIDS.

LetsStopAIDS will be represented by Shamin Mohamed Jr., who has advocated for youth involvement in the global HIV response for almost two decades. GENEVA, Dec 13, 2023 – In a significant development for HIV advocacy, LetsStopAIDS, Canada's largest youth-driven HIV charity, has been elected as the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) delegate for North America at the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). The election, which underscores the charity's growing influence in the global HIV response, occurred during the 53rd session of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) in Geneva. Shamin Mohamed Jr., who has been at the forefront of promoting youth involvement in HIV-related issues for almost twenty years, will lead LetsStopAIDS in this new role. "This is a milestone for LetsStopAIDS and our network of volunteers and a testament to the dedication and impact of our work," stated Mohamed Jr. "Our representation at UNAIDS marks a significant step forward in advocating for Canadian and North American youth in the global fight against HIV." Shamin has become a widely recognized activist for his significant contributions to youth involvement in the global HIV response. At the age of 15, Shamin founded LetsStopAIDS while in High School in Toronto in response to his principal, who discouraged him from being engaged with HIV activism.  Shamin's efforts as a youth leader were awarded when he was named one of Canada’s ‘Top 20 under 20’. Almost twenty years later, LetsStopAIDS has grown to become Canada's largest Youth-HIV charity. Under his leadership, LetsStopAIDS has extended its reach to over 72 countries, promoting a sex-positive and comprehensive approach to sexual health. During his dynamic journey as an activist, Shamin became a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist. Shortly after completing his degree in Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa, he became co-founder of DECIEM, a multinational beauty company that revolutionized the skincare industry. As a result of his business success, Shamin possesses a unique perspective on organizational leadership. He has taken what he’s learned from his work with DECIEM and continues to grow LetsStopAIDS. “I look forward to joining UNAIDS in the global fight to eradicate new infections of HIV.” About LetsStopAIDS LetsStopAIDS is Canada's largest Youth-HIV charity focused on fostering youth leadership and enhancing awareness about HIV and sexual health among youth aged 15 to 29. With a vast network of volunteers worldwide, LetsStopAIDS implements educational initiatives, research, community engagement, and skills development programmes in Canada and internationally. With programming reaching over 200,000 youth globally, LetsStopAIDS plays a crucial role in developing effective awareness strategies for HIV prevention and in actively combating HIV-related stigma within young communities. In 2023, LetsStopAIDS released the findings of the  Sex Lives Report , a nationally representative survey that investigates the sexual behaviour of Canadian youth and the intersection with HIV/STI prevention. Learn more at  LetsStopAIDS.org

Media inquires

We understand that media professionals have a need for accurate and timely information about our organization, and we are committed to providing you with the resources you need.