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Old Enough to Know: Consulting Children About Sex and AIDS Education in Africa by Colleen McLaughlin, Sharlene Swartz, Susan Kiragu, Shelina Walli and Mussa Mohamed

Old Enough to Know: Consulting Children About Sex and AIDS Education in Africa is a welcome and critical contribution to the literature on sex and HIV education in subSaharan Africa. The study used a diverse and robust set of methods in its investigation across schools in Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania and draws on a variety of perspectives including those of teachers, pupils and community leaders. The authors assert the social and health need to understand young people’s awareness of and sources of information around sex and HIV. For the purpose of engaging young people in HIV prevention, this must be understood within the context of young people’s social worlds. The evidence from the three countries on the gap between young people’s knowledge of sex, the experience of pressure to engage in sex and the lack of interaction with such awareness and experience in the school setting confirms this point. Consulting young people revealed that sexuality is an intrinsic aspect of their lives, a sentiment that was reportedly negated, stigmatised and denied by many adults. Community dialogues were used to negotiate the competing discourses around young people’s sexuality and represented a valuable form of research and educational tool. While the book provides rich insights about young people’s knowledge, access, and evaluation of sex and HIV information, it would have benefitted from more comprehensively detailing whether and how this differed between young men and women and how that might exacerbate their risk of HIV in different ways. This book is of utmost importance for those in the HIV prevention and education sector targeting young people, and those interested in adolescent sexual health and sexuality.