by TRACY MOORE

THE NATIONAL HIV/AIDS COMMISSION won't be saying sorry for its latest series of condom-use advertisements which have come in for criticism from several quarters.

Commission chairperson Dr Carol Jacobs said yesterday the It's Your Wicket, Protect It series of ads, first aired and published during Cricket World Cup 2007, were intended to stimulate discussion. She said more were on the way.

Speaking to the MIDWEEK NATION after the inaugural launch and presentation of the Dr Carol Jacobs Scholarship of the Optimist Club of Ernst & Young Caribbean held at the University of the West Indies, Jacobs said the commission's campaigns were based on research which showed that between 40 to 45 per cent of children in Barbados were sexually active before the age of 16 and ten per cent were sexually active before the age of eight.

"The next [sexually active] spike was in the over-55 age group," she said. "We wanted something that would catch the attention, [even] of the over-55 year olds," she said.

"It was a successful campaign because it stimulated discussion. People in that age group are thinking about the message and it's not intended to be offensive."

Jacobs described the negative reactions to the ads as hypocritical because sexual behaviours were the reality to be addressed.

Among the critics was Independent Senator Sir John Stanley Goddard, who was concerned that sexual intercourse was seemingly being portrayed as just another sport or game like cricket.

Child Care Board chairman David "Joey" Harper was also concerned that subliminally the ads conveyed the wrong message.

Anglican priest Reverend Errington Massiah wrote that one advertisement gave the impression that "during Cricket World Cup there'll be sex for everyone and you must come prepared, with your condom, to take part".

Jacobs stressed that the commission also had an abstinence committee which targeted primary schools.

tracymoore @nationnews.com