Condoms 'readily and easily accessible' at Boy Scouts global gathering as girls now permitted

Condoms will now be made 'readily and easily accessible' at the Boy Scouts' global gathering World Scout Jamboree, to be held in August 2019.

In 2017, the Boy Scouts were embroiled in a row when they decided to allow girls and transgender children to enrol, in a historic move. The changes in the rules in relation to condoms come in light of the addition of girls.

The new guidelines were drafted after the 2015 Jamboree in Japan, but - according to Charisma News - were only recently released to members in an email.

The new guidelines state:

The host organisation must ensure that condoms are readily and easily accessible for all participants and IST at a number of locations on the site.

World Jamborees are held every four years, and the 24th World Scout Jamboree will be held in the mountains of West Virginia from July 21 to August 1 2019.

In 2019, the theme for the jamboree is 'Unlock a New World', which is meant to reflect the 'new adventures, cultures, and friendships that will be shared by Scouts from around the world during the event'.

Girl Scouts have been permitted to attend the jamboree in the past, but this is the first time girls are expected to make up half of all attendees.

When girls were permitted to join, the Boy Scouts' chief executive said:

The values of Scouting – trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind, brave and reverent, for example – are important for both young men and women.

Unsurprisingly the revelations have caused outcry among conservatives. Florida Family Policy Council president John Stemberger said in a statement to Charisma News:

With the addition of condoms and alcohol, the World Jamboree is starting to sound more like a 1960s Woodstock festival rather than a campout that parents would want to send their children to!

Just two weeks ago it was announced that the Boy Scouts would be changing its name to reflect that girls and members of the LGBT+ community are now permitted to join.

From next February it will be known as Scouts BSA, and it is expected that both boys and girls will simply refer to themselves as 'scouts'.

It was only in 2013 that the scouts relinquished its ban on gay members, after extensive campaigning by activists.

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