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Youth advocates call abstinence -only a betrayal

Teen Sex by Cedriann Martin • Sunday 05 June 2005• 877 words

The issue of who should teach our children about sex and what they should say is dangerously delicate. The members of Advocates for Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (AYSRHR) learned this quite unceremoniously when a national furore was sparked by its distribution of brochures containing a condom and information on sexually transmitted infections to secondary school students in 2003.

Religious leaders registered their discontent. Parents sounded off on talk-shows. Concerned citizens wrote letters to the editor. And politicians were asked to clarify their position on "distributing condoms" to minors. It wasn't the kind of buzz AYSRHR anticipated.

"We realised that we had a grave problem," said AYSRHR's Karima McKenzie-Thomas. "The HIV situation was getting out of hand, our peers were dying, and nothing was being done. There was no curriculum in schools dealing with the issue so we devised an advocacy strategy to highlight that deficiency...the fact that there is a vacuum that someone needs to fill."

AYSRHR, an advocacy network of groups that work in the area of sexual and reproductive health, thought that their after-school initiative would get them the go-ahead to introduce a peer education programme to schools. Instead, they drew the right wing's bane. But the strategy did accomplish two valuable feats.

On the one hand, it got the public talking about the issue of sex education. On the other, it put the authorities on the spot, reminding them of commitments made through its ratification of major human rights conventions, including one to adopt a Caricom Health and Family Life Education programme in 1975. The activists emerged from the controversy a bit battered, but optimistic about the prospect of having a culturally-relevant and comprehensive sex education programme for the nation's students.

So when last September the Joint Committee of the Ministries of Education and Health in Support of Youth Abstinence introduced its Louisiana-sourced abstinence curriculum-a programme that ousts information on condom use and contraception, opting instead for virginity pledges-many in the movement considered the initiative a slap in the face.

"They had a consultation in which they introduced the good people from Louisiana. But it was obvious that they weren't really consulting us. It was more of a presentation. After all the time and all the drama they imported abstinence-only," McKenzie-Thomas said with obvious disdain. Salorne McDonald, the Behaviour Change Communications manager at Population Services International and then Community Outreach Coordinator at the YMCA, explained that though the abstinence-only programme is not overtly connected to any religious denomination, anyone attending the consultation would have been forgiven for believing it was.

"When I went to that get-together at Mt Hope on the second day there were a whole lot of 'hallelujahs' and 'praise the Lords'. Ain't nothing wrong with that, but you can't Bible-slap your way into dealing with HIV and AIDS. If that worked, Brazil-with its huge Catholic community-would have the lowest rate of STIs," he said. The activists argue that any successful attempt at sex education must be non-judgmental and non-directive. With its explicit emphasis on abstaining from premarital sex, the abstinence-only programme, they argue, fails on both counts.

"You can't push people in one direction or the other. That is not realistic. You have to present the information in a non-judgmental manner. Think about it: we feel offended and hurt when people are targeting us and we set up a wall. How is the child who is already sexually active going to respond to abstinence-only? We have to devise a programme that looks at the realities of human behaviour and embraces everyone. That is what health and family life education is about--a complete package," he said.

McKenzie-Thomas corroborated: "I can only be empowered when I can make a choice based on relevant, accurate information. Adults need to trust young people enough to give us information and allow us to make choices. Think about the position that young people [who are exposed to abstinence-only programmes] are in now. The day I stop abstaining, what's my position? I don't know how to protect myself."

Both activists argue that the committee responsible for developing a programme for sex education in schools should be composed of all the major stakeholders and experts. Social workers. Educators. Community leaders. Peer counsellors. Folks from the FPA. Workers at Rapport. Policy makers at the higher echelons. And youths from different catchment groups.

"You must involve the youth because it is a programme for youth," McKenzie-Thomas stressed. "Vision 2020 and the Draft Gender Policy have employed a consultation process with a fantastic multi-sectoral approach. That's what we need here. Anybody who has some stake in the issue must be involved."

McDonald remains adamant: "We need a non-judgmental programme that's based on social reality and human behaviour. Outside of that they are wasting time... just masturbating. They're pleasing themselves with what they believe is good and nobody else is getting satisfaction."

Next week, The Joint Committee of the Ministries of Education and Health in Support of Youth Abstinence responds to study-findings that challenge the efficacy of abstinence-only programmes, and answers the criticisms levied against it by those in favour of a more comprehensive approach to sex education.