By Desmond Davidson

KUCHING, MALAYSIA - One in three female secondary school students who took part in a Universiti Malaya study a decade ago admitted they were sexually active.

"If that was a decade ago, imagine what it would be like today," child psychology researcher Datuk Dr Chiam Heng Keng told the New Sunday Times at the Sarawak Women's Bureau seminar on "Training our Children on Personal Safety".

At the time of the study on the habits of girls aged 12 to 18, Dr Chiam was professor of Social Psychology at the university. She is now a Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) commissioner.

In her talk on "Facing Today's Realities", Dr Chiam said: "It gives them (the girls) the feeling 'I'm very cool because my friends are also doing it', and it must be right because everyone is doing it."

Dr Chiam said since having sex was common among students then, she "wouldn't be surprised if pupils in primary schools would do it, too, in time to come".

She said the study found that some had sex for pleasure, but most prostituted themselves for the money to buy expensive goods, such as handphones and branded clothes.

Surprisingly, she said, these students did not go to parks or other public places to have sex.

"They did it at home."

So Dr Chiam advised parents to be more alert when their children brought home friends of the opposite sex "to study". She said it was best not to let them use the bedroom to do their work.