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UN Guide for Sex Ed Generates Opposition
PARIS — A set of proposed international sex education guidelines aimed at reducing H.I.V. infections among young people has provoked criticism from conservative groups that say the program would be too explicit for young children and promote access to legal abortion as a right.
The guidelines, scheduled to be released by Unesco in a new draft next week, would be distributed to education ministries, school systems and teachers around the world to help guide teachers in what to teach young people about their bodies, sex, relationships and sexually transmitted diseases. They would address four different age groups.
“In the absence of a vaccine for AIDS, education is the only vaccine we have,” said Mark Richmond, Unesco’s global coordinator for H.I.V. and AIDS and the director of the division that coordinates educational priorities. “Only 40 percent of young people aged 15 to 24 have accurate knowledge” of how the disease is transmitted, he said, even though that age group “accounts for 45 percent of all new cases.”
But the conservative criticism has already caused one of the key participating and donor agencies, the United Nations Population Fund, to pull back from the project and ask that its name be edited out of the published material, United Nations officials said.
A Population Fund official, reached in New York, said Tuesday that the fund wanted changes to the text. “Discussions are ongoing to make the publication more effective and adaptable by countries, so it may better serve countries as guidelines for use in national educational systems,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.
A draft issued in June has been attacked by conservative and religious groups, mainly in the United States, for recommending discussions of homosexuality, describing sexual abstinence as “only one of a range of choices available to young people” to prevent disease and unwanted pregnancy, and suggesting a discussion of masturbation with children as young as 5.
“If you ever have a situation where kids need to be taught earlier than their adolescence, this is not the way to do it,” said Colin Mason of the Population Research Institute, an anti-abortion organization based in Virginia. “It’s very graphic and encourages practices like masturbation, which conservative Christians and others feel are wrong.”
The diversity of views around the world on these issues renders any universal approach “culturally insensitive,” Mr. Mason said. “We think it’s a kind of one-size-fits-all approach that’s damaging to cultures, religions and to children,” he said.
The barrage of criticism has put Unesco, the United Nations agency charged with advancing education and culture worldwide, on the defensive. The agency has removed the June draft of the guidelines from its Web site, and delayed the release of the final document.
“Unfortunately, the way the guidelines have been presented by certain media has provoked some fairly aggressive reactions, mainly in the form of virulent comment on conservative American Web sites, but also via some very nasty e-mails directed at the two co-authors as well as certain Unesco staff,” said Sue Williams, the spokeswoman for the agency, which is based in Paris.
A team of experts at Unesco has been working on the guidelines for two years, drawing on more than 80 studies of sex education, at a cost of about $350,000. Coordinated with other United Nations agencies, like the World Health Organization and Unicef, the project is intended to help member countries improve sex education and sexual health, reduce H.I.V. and AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, as well as illegal abortions, especially in the developing world.
According to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, each year there are at least 111 million new cases of sexually transmitted disease among people ages 10 to 24; 10 percent of births are to teenage mothers; and up to 4.4 million women 15 to 19 seek abortions.
“The main effort is to try to empower young people with knowledge that could actually save their lives,” said Mr. Richmond, the Unesco H.I.V./AIDS coordinator. “We want to give them the opportunity for more informed choices than currently exist.”
But for some conservative and religious groups, the guidelines are too detailed and too uniform in their recommendations across different cultures, and they remove responsibility from parents.
The guidelines suggest, for example, that teachers begin discussing masturbation with children ages 5 to 8, with a more extensive discussion for those ages 9 to 12.
Michelle Turner, founder of the Maryland-based Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, says children that age should be learning “the proper name of certain parts of their bodies” but “certainly not about masturbation.”
“I’m really concerned about what they want to teach 5- to 8-year-olds, and I have concerns about their position on abortion and the way they want to present it to youth,” she said. “Where are parents’ rights? It’s not up to the government to teach these things.”
But one of the guidelines’ authors, Nanette Ecker, former director of international education and training at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, said that given the extent of sexual abuse, unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, sex education has to start early in order to “provide young people with the specific information and skills they need to navigate safely from childhood to adulthood.”
Conservative groups have also criticized the draft guidelines for discussions of condom use, sexually transmitted diseases and the assertion that “legal abortion performed under sterile conditions by medically trained personnel is safe.” The guidelines suggest discussing “access to safe abortion and post-abortion care” and the “use and misuse of emergency contraception” with those ages 12 to 15. The guidelines recommend that “the right to and access to safe abortion” should also be discussed.
Unesco has responded to the onslaught of criticism by issuing a news release about the guidelines before their release, defending them as “evidence-informed and rights-based.”
The guidelines themselves argue that sex education helps to delay the onset of sexual activity, reduce the number of sexual partners and unprotected sex. In fact, a whole section is devoted to justifying why they have been written and trying to answer the concerns of parents and religious leaders.
“The document is not a curriculum,” Mr. Richmond said. “It focuses on the why and what issues that require attention in strategies to introduce or strengthen sexuality education.”
The final document was scheduled to be released at a conference in Birmingham, England, on Monday. Now the agency says that it will present a new draft then, and that it hopes to produce the final guidelines by the end of the year.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllRight wingers fear that their economic model will not work if global family planning reduces the number of desperate people willing to work cheap.
They also fear (unconsciously, mostly) that their political-economic model will not work if sexuality is not rabidly repressed. Empire, racism, religion, class structure, etc etc etc, all depend on sexual repression.
That may not be an idea you're used to but read Wilhelm Reich's The Function of the Orgasm and The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Not easy reads but worth it. Or read James DeMeo's Saharasia, especially the first couple of chapters.
Enough with the over-influence of some US right wingers who do not give a crap about the health of people around the world.
Just because the far right Christians can't control their rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs with their stupid "abstinence only" policy, doesn't mean the rest of the world needs to suffer.
Maybe all that repression explains how so many right-wingers so often turn into perverts (abductions,family-sects, restroom encounters, infidelity, homophobics, pedophiles).
Reactionaries/Fascists Voice Criticism Over UN Guide for Sex Ed
Let's be accurate.
From the article:
“In the absence of a vaccine for AIDS, education is the only vaccine we have.”
The same crowd now complaining about education would oppose a vaccine if it were ever discovered, since it would reduce the fear of sex just like the Pill did.
With a tip of the hat to George Carlin, what would happen if a right-winger spoke and no one listened?
The US has the highest rates of teen pregnacies in the industrialsied world. It over 2 times higher then Canada and Canadas rate is 4 times higher again then in the netherlands.
The abortion rate amongst US teens is also much higher then the rest of the world.
When will the Conservatives in the USA recognize that THEIR methods do not work?
All of these other countries have sex education programs
They don't care that their methods fail to provide children with essential information about sex.
This is part of the patriarchical/authoritarian mental disorder that is a part of what they mean when they talk about strong family values, focus on the family, Christian parenting, and a host of other code words which refer to a parent's right to keep a child ignorant, backward, and confused.
Unfortunately, the ignorant kids become ignorant adults who transfer parental authority to the church, the state, and the boss. The government considers superstition, ignorance, blind obedience a literal godsend.
Think Obama will cut back on this cozy compact with conservative religion? Not bloody likely.
Let the civilized world educate their children with all those facts and stuff. Here in America, we don't want to confuse our kids with a bunch of naughty ideas. As long as we don't tell little 15 year old Johnny about sex, he won't even know it exists. As for little Princess, she won't know either . . . until prom night . . . even little Princess gets it on prom night.
Ha-ha-ha-ha!
"Mr. Mason said. “We think it’s a kind of one-size-fits-all approach that’s damaging to cultures"
Since when did the Religious Right ever even consider, let alone respect, cultures different from their own?
I mean, do they actually know (or care) that there's a difference between Austria and Australia? Have they heard of Mauritania or Mali or Burkina Faso or know they exist alongside each other?
“It’s very graphic and encourages practices like masturbation, which conservative Christians and others feel are wrong.”
How totally out of touch can these morons be?
Is there a switch somewhere to turn them off?
Precisely what I was thinking.
If the right wingers bothered to take this to heart, they'd realize that most of their arguments sound like the concerns addressed on page 8 of this draft. Especially the bit about "values".
Response: "These International Guidelines on sexuality education support a rights-based approach in which values are inextricably linked to universally accepted human rights."
I'm getting the feeling these values of human rights aren't so universal to the right. They don't want any honest discussion of gender roles (or the ties between that and violence) because their arguments (it's always been this way; thus, such is correct) supporting repression is illogical and puerile; the only way to defeat logical ideas in public is to make the public illogical and puerile, one child at a time.
There is sound logic in the Right Wing protestations. It goes like this (but they will never admit it):
If you keep the kids totally in the dark about anything really useful regarding sexuality, they will have to absorb it from their culture. If the world they live in (home) has strict gender roles (mother is a servant to father who rules) then this is the kind of sexual role the kids will adopt when they partner. And the beat goes on and women are kept in their place. They have pulled this crap off now since the days of the Puritans on this continent. In Europe they have perpetuated their myths for the last 1700 years (since the time of Augustine).
Is it not interesting and miraculous how the presence or absence of multi-national money leads to either blindness (in its presence) or healing from same (in its absence)?
The same can be said for the philosophies of self-delusion known as Darwinism; scientific, social, and cultural.
Poet
Just want to point out that not all religious leaders take the stance mentioned in the article: "A draft issued in June has been attacked by conservative and religious groups, mainly in the United States, for recommending discussions of homosexuality, describing sexual abstinence..."
In fact, I am a minister and was formerly the president of Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States and am very supportive of this work. Read more of my responses at my blog: http://www.religiousinstitute.org/sexuality-and-religion.
One thing that I think is particularly essential to emphasize in sexual education is that sex, in whatever form, should be a strictly private activity. "Never kiss and tell" is an excellent guideline. In our contemporary culture, sexual conquests and exploits are commonly, and inappropriately, used as status symbols, and the oxymoronic concept of the "porn star" has lamentably become a measure of cultural success on the order of the "rock star." Hence, Paris Hilton seeing herself as a role model for young girls. Granted, Paris Hilton is not certifiably a porn star, but my point is that flaunting one's sexuality in a public venue shows a lack of both self respect and respect for others. As Ann Landers once so astutely observed, "a lemon squeezed too many times is garbage." I think that sexual education should promote the concept that sex should be something special, and strictly private, that arises in time between two people who have found reason to establish a solid relationship that is far deeper and more committed than casual friendship.
but a runner who tries to do a marathon the first time out the door will collapse and maybe die. planning, gradual training, study, preparation and experimentation all help make an activity turn out well without being traumatic. joy and pleasure are absolutely crucial to it, as anyone--marathon runner or sexual person--who ignores joy and pleasure will push themselves into unhealthy movement, stillness, thought and feeling for externally-imposed reasons.
ann landers was a sexually-repressed and repressive prude--which is not to single her out or heap criticism on her; only to say that she reflected the twisted values of her culture, the "ownership society". If you want to keep your sexuality private, fine. In fact maybe you should keep your morals and your opinions to yourself, too, until you learn to stop trying to make others live to your standards of personal taste.
Many of the healthiest (primitive) societies on earth, mostly wiped out now by the sickest, most violent and most sexually repressed ones, allow/ed children and adolescents to experiment sexually as much or as little as they want with each other. No one in these societies would think of trying to make anyone do anything against their will or exploit someone's sexuality (or anyone else's anything) for selfish gain.
I feel that educating children about the dangers of sex, along with the many possible dangers that come along with it like teenage pregnancy, sexualy transmitted diseases, and especially HIV/Aids, is crucial. It is true that all things you want your kids to now and abide by when they are older you begin instilling in them at a young age, so why should this situation be any different. In addition to those people who blame culture or religion on a reason not to teach sexual education at a younger age, they should know that once you become extremely ill or die from HIV/Aids, your beleifs can't help you and no longer matter. Therefore, your safety and health must be far more important than religion. Likewise, those who feel that if they never talk to their kids about it, and thus they will never ingage in such activity, your kids will hear about whether it be from friends or other piers at school. For this reason, parents and or teachers need to adress it earlier so that these children can recieve the correct knowledge and information form a trusted and informed adult.