The Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association (GRPA) has started a petition for the Ministry of Education to implement a comprehensive sexuality education programme in schools, in light of the recent circulation of videos featuring school children engaged in sex acts.
“We invite the public to join us in our campaign to engage in a shift towards healthy lifestyles. Today, we start a petition calling on the Ministry of Education to honour the commitments made to young people and implement a comprehensive sexuality education programme in schools,” the association said in a statement yesterday.
The GRPA said it is deeply concerned about the startling number of school aged students engaging in sexual activities, especially those instances where they are filmed and uploaded to social media in school uniforms and on the schools’ premises. It stated that the Association’s Youth Advocacy Movement would like to address these pressing issues, challenging youths and the whole society.
“We have seen over the years that an increasing number of these “incidents” have occurred and have been responded to with hastily called “press conferences” and promises of “immediate action.” More recently two tapes were released on social media of students purportedly in 2nd and 4th forms involved in sexual activity at a Georgetown School,” the GRPA said, adding that it welcomes the announcement that the Ministry of Education is conducting a probe.
At the same time, the association questioned whether the “occurrence does not present yet another case of the need for a comprehensive sexuality education programme and universal access to sexual and reproductive health for young people, including in-school youths.”
It stated that for far too long the ministry has been slow in taking actions to implement the commitments of the Ministerial Declaration on Com-prehensive Sex Education, signed by Guyana in Mexico in 2008 and the Programme of Action of the International Con-ference on Population and Development (ICPD), signed in 1994 in Egypt. It noted that these commitments recognised the need for universal access to information and services.
The GRPA also stated that even though a Health and Family Life Education programme is being effected, there is agreement in Caricom on the need to review and bring this in line with a Comprehensive Sexuality Education Curriculum.
It also highlighted the fact that Guyana has the second highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the Caribbean region. “This clearly indicates that the approach leaves a lot to be desired and that’s the reason why we have so many instances of school aged children having sexual intercourse or performing sexual activities. Equally alarming is the risk of sexually transmitted infections.
We need to teach our children all they need to know about sex, their bodies, self-awareness, self-respect, condom use and responsible behaviour, and ensure that they have access to family planning education, counselling and services,” the statement said.
According to the GRPA, the absence of sexual and reproductive health and rights education in the school system is the reason for increasing instances of adolescent students engaging in risky unplanned and unprotected sexual activities.
It further said the deficiency in this type of education results in many person experimenting and “doing so in dangerous ways” and it therefore called for a shift from the abstinence-only to a comprehensive approach to sex education, given that youths are becoming sexually active at a very tender age both either by force or by their own volition.
It indicated that a comprehensive approach is age-appropriate and responds to the sexual diversity and rights of young people and equips them to make informed decisions about sex.
“Sexual and reproductive health refers to the total health and wellness of young people and should be viewed as much more than lessons on safe sex,” the GRPA said, while adding that low self-esteem, sexual confusion, poor negotiation skills and access to information and services are all factors dealt with by a comprehensive approach.
It added that it is also critical to address policies, laws and structural and cultural barriers to young people’s control of their sexual lives and health with the need for parents, teachers, health workers and other service providers to be involved together with young people in addressing this issue.
