After a staggering one quarter of all sixth graders in West Philly reported already having had sex, the Department of Health Decided to move quickly with a public health policy that would target those most at risk – free condoms for anyone age eleven and up.

The controversial program has many parents up at arms, but a spokesman from the Department says there really weren’t a lot of solutions at their disposal to use.

Via NBC News Philadelphia:

And while the idea of 11-year-olds having sex is a grim one, and parents who are blessed with the time and resources to properly parent their children don’t like for them to be exposed to sex at such a young age, City Health Commissioner Donald Schwarz says that a recent survey of sixth-graders in West Philly showed that 25 percent of the 11-year-olds had already had sex.

“Clearly, we don’t think it’s OK for 11-year-olds to be having sex,” says Schwarz. “But we don’t have the infrastructure in place to fix [that] problem fast. We can, however, make condoms available fairly quickly to whoever needs them.”

The initiative, which can be seen at Takecontrolphilly.org, includes videos on how to use condoms as well.  Among complaints from parents about the ability for pre-teens and teens to easily access condoms were arguments that the tutorial videos on condom use were too explicit, as well.