By Veena Bharwani

SHE doesn't know exactly how a woman gets pregnant.

And the 15-year-old had no idea she could catch a sexually-transmitted infection (STI) from having unprotected sex.

Sarah (not her real name), a Normal Academic student, had unprotected sex with her 33-year-old boyfriend four times a week from May this year until last week.

Last week, her counsellor helped her to file a police report against her boyfriend for having underage sex. He had threatened her after finding out she had spoken to The New Paper.

The timid student in a neighbourhood school said: 'I met him at a friend's party in May. Two weeks after that, he invited me to his house and we had sex.'

That was the first time she had sex.

She added naively: 'I thought we were just going to listen to some music.'

After that, they met four times a week to have sex and rarely did they use a condom. On a rough count, Sarah has had unprotected sex with her boyfriend more than 50 times since May.

She said her boyfriend practised the withdrawal method, but when asked if he had ejaculated in her, she asked: 'What is that?'

She added that she learns very little about sex and safe sex in school. 'I only remember attending assembly and listening to one talk in Sec 1. I didn't pay much attention to it as there were too many people and no one thinks it's important anyway.'

Sarah also knew little about her boyfriend when she began sleeping with him.

'He didn't tell me how old he was and I didn't want to ask as I didn't want him to lose interest in me. My friend told me he was 21 and I just believed my friend.'

One month into their relationship in mid-June, the boyfriend told her he was 33 and divorced with a 5-year-old son.

She said: 'I got a shock but I continued to see him and have sex with him because I really like him. I thought he cared about me as he always told me to pay attention in school and do my schoolwork properly.'

Ms Sheena Jebal, who has been counselling the teen for the past eight months at NuLife Care and Counselling, said Normal Academic students such as Sarah can fall into such relationships too early because of their low self-esteem.

'She is a timid girl and it is easy to see how someone can take advantage of her. But the biggest problem is girls like her don't have the right information.'

Sarah has not become pregnant or contracted an STI. But she might not be so lucky next time.

This article was first published in The New Paper on Aug 25, 2008.