Deputy Minister of Public Health Jet Bussemaker has said she is budgeting extra money for the sexual education of boys.

In a letter on sexual health policy to the Dutch lower house Ms Bussemaker wrote she wants to tackle prevailing double moral standards. Research has shown that many teenagers think boys who have many sexual partners are cool, but girls with the same behaviour are dubbed whores, she said.

Ms Bussemaker emphasises that boys as well as girls are responsible for birth control in sexual relationships. She also said that boys should learn what they have to ask and do, and what they should not. Eighteen percent of girls and four percent of boys have been faced with enforced sex, which are "worrying figures", the deputy minister writes.

One million euros is being set aside for local health services to fight sexually transmitted diseases and enforced sex among minority groups through improved education. Surinamese and Antillean teenagers are more at risk of such diseases. In general, New Dutchmen as minority groups are now referred to, are prone to more difficulties with sexual health. In her letter Deputy Minister Bussemaker refers to "problems with loverboys, female circumcision, free partner choice, and violence against gays and lesbians" as subjects which need to be tackled.

Return to old-style gallantry? Statuette, Brussels (Photo: Wiki/Michel Wal)