The cornerstone of unity

58
CONTROLLING SEXUALLY
TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS
The prevalence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Finland has remained at a reasonable Western 
European level. In this respect our position is much better than that of our Eastern neighbour, the Russian 
Federation, where rates of e.g. syphilis and gonorrhoea have been up to a hundred times higher. The Finnish and 
German HIV infection rates in 2016 of 33 per million were the lowest in Europe. In addition, more than half of the 
cases recorded in Finland were not Finnish citizens. Other Nordic countries had double the amount of cases, while 
the figures for Russia and Estonia were ten and twenty times as high, respectively. A total of only 68 HIV cases 
below the age of 20 were recorded up to the year 2017 in Finland, and only 28 of them were Finns. So Finland has 
been exceptionally successful in the prevention of HIV infections among both adults and teenagers. 
How has Finland been so successful in preventing STI’s and HIV infections? Education has focused on 
teaching teenagers to take responsibility 
for their own lives as well as their partners’; mandatory sex education 
was implemented in comprehensive schools (innovation no. 40) in 1970 and a law was enacted in 1972 which 
placed family planning counselling services under the jurisdiction of municipal health care centres (innovation no. 
50). Schools received public health nurses, who took a leading role in teenage sex education. The use of 
condoms saw a sharp increase at the end of 1960s, at which time they were used by half of those experiencing 
sexual intercourse for the first time. Before AIDS became an issue, Finns were the second highest users of 
condoms in the world, after the Japanese. 
There was a lot of room for improvement in sex education and sexual health services in the beginning, but 
they became areas of serious professional activity as professionals in the field were trained to higher standards 
and attitudes became more liberal. Follow-up surveys showed a steady increase in sexual knowledge among 
teenagers and in the use of contraceptives among the general population between the 1970s and 2010s. This 
led to a comparable decrease in the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions, and a similar drop in STIs.
The situation has been helped by the fact that intravenous (IV) drug use has never been as much of a 
problem in Finland as it has in neighbouring countries. Also, Finland’s “harm reduction” approach to IV drug use, 
an example of which is the free distribution of clean needles, has gathered weight in recent years. 
Finland, like its Nordic neighbours, differs from other European countries with regards to the issue of gender 
equality, which has come so far that moral double standards are already practically non-existent. The 
empowerment of women has also been positively reflected in the parallel decrease of STIs. Girls use condoms as 

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boldly as boys, and they have learned to exercise their right to safe sexual pleasure. The standards expected of a 
good partner have also risen over the years: he/she is required to be sexually faithful and respond to his/her 
partner’s sexual desires. This progress has made the prevention of STIs more effective than before. 
Only time will tell how much sexual desire will be channelled into the safe, infection-free world of virtual sex, 
which, as the number of single and partnerless elderly people increases, could turn out to be a true alternative 
outlet for unfulfilled sexual desire, which people are becoming more unwilling to endure. As a leader in 
information technology (innovation s nos. 79, 80 and 81), Finland could become a trendsetter for other European 
countries. 
Osmo Kontula 
– Research professor at the Family Federation of Finland