Ban on sex education is a violation of international commitments

Hyderabad : Members of a worldwide youth coalition today demanded that their right to sex education not be denied. The 4th Asia Pacific Conference of Reproductive and Sexual health and Rights officially endorsed this demand.

In an open letter to the governments of the Asia Pacific region released on the closing day of the three day conference, it said that young people faced significant barriers to sexual and reproductive information, resources and services and needed age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education that is evidence-based and non-judgemental.

Calling for greater commitment from the political leadership, the conference said making quality health services available was not beyond national budgets as both resources and technology were available.

It said that poverty today had moved away from its earlier definition that encompassed only economic parameters. Today, social poverty inhibits and constrains access to already scare development resources to young people living with HIV an AIDS, to women seeking safe abortions and all people living in vulnerable circumstances.

This was reiterated by the youth coalition, which has over 200 members participating in the conference. It said the ban on sex education in various Indian states was not only a denial of their fundamental rights to education, health and expression but was also a violation of international commitments made by the Indian government.

While India was dragging its feet on introducing sex education in schools, countries like Cambodia and Indonesia, with cultural traditions similar to India, have already done so. Interestingly, several Catholic schools in Pakistan have introduced sex education. Bali has opted for a phased curriculum, introducing sex education in various subjects such as biology and sociology.

Supriya Pillai of the New York-based International Women’s Health Coalition said the arguments about morality and culture being polluted by sex education made little sense in India where child marriage and child sexual abuse was widely prevalent. Information of their bodies and what constituted a good and bad touch would go a long way in helping the adolescents in protecting themselves.

Prateek Suman, incoming chairman of the Netherlands-based World Aids Campaign, said a lot of opposition to sex education was politics. “It is immoral to play around with these issues. Politicising sex education is immoral, not sex education,” he said.

Ishita Choudhry of the Young Parliamentarians Foundation based in New Delhi, wanted an inclusion of the youth in the Indian Parliamentary Committee that is at present seeking opinion across the country on whether sex education should be introduced. They should be able to also review the contents of the sex education curriculum when it is finalized.

Furthermore, the rights of the people with diverse sexual preferences need to be recognized socially and legally. According to Clara Rita Padilla, executive director, EnGendeRights, a NGO based in Philippines, procedures related to legalizing sex changes need to be simplified and in certain countries, issues like pensions, insurance and employments policies need to be introduced for same sex couples.

Tags: sex education, youth

Category: Voices of Youth