Kohima, April 25: The Nagaland government’s move to impart education on HIV and AIDS in schools from primary classes has been welcomed by a renowned sexologist. The medical practitioner specialising in family planning, Raj Brahmbhatt, has gone a step further and said sex education should begin at home at an early age.

Brahmbhatt was part of a team of the Family Planning Association of India (FPAI), which included association president Nina Puri. The team is on a visit from Mumbai. The association is the largest voluntary organisation in the country working in the field of family planning.

“Sex education is not genital education, but all about right and responsible sexual behaviour,” Brahmbhatt told newsmen here. “It is also about respecting women and treating them as equals,” he added.

Focusing on Nagaland, he said there was a lack of recreation facilities as well as guidance for the youth. The association is concentrating on maternal and child health issues and now plans to expand beyond the conventional scope of family planning to cover issues like HIV and AIDS, Puri said.

She said the Nagaland branch of the association — set up 25 years back — was making a pioneering effort by involving youth to form peer groups for spreading awareness on sexual health and behaviour. “Youths are the best people to speak to the youth,” she said.

Two branches of the FPAI at Kohima and Jotsoma have trained 80 youth, both boys and girls, to reach out to 4,000 people in the same age group. “The response has been phenomenal,” Puri claimed, adding that some of these volunteers would be sent to London for advanced training.

Supporting the “middle path” in family planning, Puri said a recent private Bill in Parliament on extreme family planning measures amounted to coercion. “It is like harking back to Emergency days,” she said, adding that the health of the mother and child was of paramount importance.

The team, comprising two vice-presidents of the association, yesterday met Governor Shyamal Datta and chief minister Neiphiu Rio to apprise them on the association’s activities in Nagaland. The state government has assured funds and other kinds of help, the team members said.