Apprentices or those doing their non-military civil service for the Norwegian Missionary Society (NMS) are forbidden to fall in love or have sex. Labor union officials say the clause is not an employer's business but the NMS is pleased with their rules, newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad reports.
Those doing first time service abroad for the NMS must sign a codes of conduct agreement, an increasingly common type of document being used in the oil industry, among others. The NMS version forbids any sexual contact, even forbidding two people of the opposite sex from sleeping in the same room.
NMS leaders say the rules are explained in the context of AIDS risk and cultural differences, and argue that the provision is meant to protect these workers, who are often in their late teens.
"No one has the right to interfere with or regulate the private lives of others. This concerns the absolute innermost sphere of one's private life and is something an employer should have nothing to do with," LO (Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions) lawyer Are Nilsen told Stavanger Aftenblad.
"This agreement isn't worth the paper it is printed on. If you, as a 19-year-old, fall head over heels in love, there isn't a court in the world that would condone a firing," Nilsen said.
LO secretary Svein Fjellheim considers the NMS counseling about dangers, illnesses and cultural differences that await in foreign service "very reasonable" but said it should have stopped there.
"We are a Christian organization and assume a Christian sexual morality. In the NMS as a whole the rule is that sex is for those who have a formal, mutually respecting agreement, usually marriage. This is self-evident but we live in a time of many differing opinions and that is why it is correct to draw attention to this in regulations," said NMS secretary general Kjetil Aano.
Aano also argues that the rule protects the NMS as employer in case an apprentice were to return with a sexually transmitted disease.
Aano said that cultural differences also posed dangers for naive Norwegians, giving as an example that a display of public affection in Cameroon could be interpreted as a marriage agreement.
The NMS official emphasized that the organization had nothing against cross-cultural marriages.
"There was quite a heated internal discussion about these regulations. I know it is a strong step but I am glad the rules came out this way," Aano told the newspaper.