Hajara knows that pregnancy is a risk of unprotected sex - but the 14-year-old admits she has never given Aids a second thought.
Sitting in the common room of her London school, she says: 'I know girls who believe that if you have sex from behind, you can't get pregnant. But there aren't any stories going round about how not to get Aids because no one my age even thinks about it; it's something that older people worried about ages ago.'
Around her, a half a dozen friends share her diffidence: 'Who's chlamydia?' asks one, without a trace of irony. 'Gonorrhea?' says another. 'I don't understand all these long words.'
Britain's record on sexual health came under scrutiny this weekend after a report by the United Nations Children's Fund revealed that the UK has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the developed world, second only to the United States. But while teen mothers are already the subjects of numerous, well-funded government campaigns, public health experts believe sexual health issues are being ignored.
'Young people today have little perception of risk; they have forgotten the lessons of the Aids era,' said Simon Forrest, director of the Sex Education Forum. 'There is no longer a feeling that these diseases are relevant to the younger generation, and there is a general acknowledgment that even if someone does get infected, they won't die because of the combination therapies that are now available.'
Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, are on the rise across Britain, with an increase of over 300,000 cases between 1995 and 2000. 'The terrifying thing about the enormous rise in rates of STDs other than Aids is that they are generally regarded as indicators of a future rise in HIV,' Forrest said.
Public health authorities predict that by 2005 the number of Britons infected with HIV will have increased to around 50,000 - nearly 50 per cent more than in 2000 - with the largest growth among people aged between 18 to 24.
Forrest believes complacency among young people is a result of the Government's decision to combine funding specifically earmarked for sex education into a larger, more general pot of health guidance. 'I think we assumed the battle was won back when the notorious tombstone adverts shocked an entire generation of young people into altering their sexual behaviour in the Eighties,' Forrest said. 'No one under the age of 16 now was alive at the time those adverts came out. An entirely new generation has begun experimenting with sexuality in the years since, without consistent, up-to-date information about the risks and realities.'
The extent of ignorance was highlighted by a recent MTV survey across 15 countries which revealed that 20 per cent of respondents thought only people from certain nations could contract HIV, while 15 per cent believed only people who shared needles were at risk.
'There's no guarantee that the information children are given in school is full or up to date,' said Dr Kaye Wellings, head of the centre for sexual health research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. 'It's worse now than during the Aids era; teachers are doing their best but the fact that we still have things like Section 28 hanging around is proof of the muddle that is out there.'
In a survey of students across the country, Wellings found enormous variation between the quality of sex education received by students, not just between geographical areas but even between teachers in the same school. She says that lack of training has left teachers feeling that STDs are just one more thing to cram into an already overloaded curriculum.
Such confusion has a clear impact on the students. 'I can't talk to my mum because she'll assume I'm doing something I shouldn't,' said Hajara. 'But the couple of times I've tried to ask my teachers, they've told me they're not allowed to talk about it, or they've changed the subject.'
Wellings said: 'It's not the school's fault. Society is in a muddle and adults are embarrassed. We need to change the culture, not the schools.'
Forrest added: 'There is a feeling that only the minorities need guidance.' This reveals a deadly ignorance: for the past three years, more heterosexuals than homosexuals have contracted HIV.
Experts agree that the answer is not simply to return to the scare tactics of the past; not only is there little evidence that lessons learnt through fear make any lasting impact on behaviour, but the reasons for the rise in STDs are now vastly different.
According to a yet-to-be published government survey of UK schools carried out by the teenage pregnancy unit, 83 per cent of men and 80 per cent of women aged 16 to 19 said they would use a condom for first intercourse. 'We were amazed by the number of young people who said they would use condoms and realised that we would have to look elsewhere for the reason for the rise in STDs,' said Wellings, who carried out the research.
While poor sex education meant young people were failing to use condoms with enough consistency and care, Wellings realised that the main problem was that because young people are having sex earlier and settling down later, there is simply more time in which to contract disease.
'In the 1950s, 60 per cent of women had sex for the first time with a man to whom they were engaged or already married,' she said. 'Now it's one per cent. It's not that people are worryingly promiscuous, it's just that even serial monogamy over such a long period of time means you are that much more likely to contract an STD.'
The only answer, Wellings believes, is to teach children the 'belt and braces' lesson of both oral contraceptives and condoms. 'It happens in the Netherlands where the message is about both sexual health and pregnancy,' she said.
For some young Britons such change in attitudes may come too late. 'I never used to be ashamed about sex but because almost every adult I've ever spoken to has been really embarrassed, I now find it almost impossible to talk about the issue at all,' said Hajara.
'I find the whole thing really worrying and scary now; I just want to pretend it isn't there.'
