Right or wrong message? (2)

It is our understanding that Vodafone's campaign was not meant to promote sex among youth. Regardless, their campaign was not very well thought out and may have backfired.

It would have been easier to understand this strategy if the condoms were given out by a company marketing contraceptives.

However, many are still pondering about the possible link between mobile telephony and contraception. It is disheartening to find that in order to entice more customers, certain companies make use of such appalling strategies without perhaps taking into account the more serious implications that may be at play.

By giving out free condoms, can one not also be promoting the idea that a person's sexual life has very little worth and can in fact be easily used and thrown away? Youth are constantly being bombarded by messages in the media suggesting that sex is a mere recreational event of little consequence to relationships.

These messages obscure concepts related to the value of relationships, sexual health and the dignity of individuals. As previous articles have already pointed out, there is an undeniable link between contraception and further abortions - statistics on this have been issued by pro-abortion organisations rather than pro-life movements, which lead to the enhanced credibility of such results.

Human sexuality is built upon relationships, communication and emotions and not only on physical contact. Providing condoms as part of a promotional gimmick only targets the physical feature of human sexuality and so this may transmit the wrong message, this being that the other characteristics are less important.

For the above reasons, I believe that it would have been wiser and of greater societal value if Vodafone had embarked on a different strategy altogether, promoting positive relationships through, for example, communication - an enterprise which can be maintained through the use of the products and services offered by the same company.