[0:11]Namaste and greetings from the World Health Organization. In my presentation today, I want to make the case to you that we are shying away from sexuality education. To do that, I'm going to present five points. The first is that we need to accept that we are, in fact, shying away from sexuality education. Let me begin with a story. I was born and brought up in India. I was fortunate to be born to well-educated and caring parents. I was also fortunate to be able to go to good schools. My parents always told my three siblings and myself that they didn't have a lot of money to leave to us. Their gift to us, they said, would be a good education. My parents expected us to study hard. They supported us to study hard, they made sure that we studied hard. So did our teachers. They expected us to come to school, to classes with our books and papers. They expected us to pay attention in class, to do our homework assignments properly and to do well in our tests. Thanks to my parents and teachers, I did well in school. I did well in university. I went on to become a medical doctor. I specialized in public health, and for over the last 20 years I've worked for the World Health Organization. I'm very grateful to my parents and teachers for what they've done for me. One thing that neither my parents nor my teachers taught me was about sex or reproduction. I learned about sex from a classmate in school. I was 13 years old then. My sexuality education teacher was about the same age. We learned, I learned from him about sex on the sidelines of the school playground. In a couple of conversations. I don't remember clearly what he said or how he said it. But what I remember is that I was very interested, there was a sense of disbelief and I was a little shocked. Wow, is that so? I also distinctly remember that I could not relate what he said to me about what men and women did in bed to my parents. I could never imagine my father having sex with my mother, very difficult to conceive. Moving on with my story, I studied biology in secondary school. One of the topics was the human reproductive system. I distinctly remember that lesson. We were about six or eight of us, a mixed group, and we sat around the table with our biology teacher. She was extremely uncomfortable in dealing with the subject, and so were we. After a lot of fidgeting and some long silences, she told us, can you read the chapter at home? And don't worry, there'll be no questions on this subject in the examination. Now, there are many people in this beautiful theater who are younger than me. Some of you perhaps are my age. We all have different experiences of sexuality education. Please reflect on your experiences. My experiences were over 40 years ago. But the sad reality is, although the world has changed, India has changed in a big way. The world has changed in a big way. In terms of sexuality education, very little has changed. Boys and girls around the world learn about sex from friends, from books, from magazines, from films, and now increasingly the internet. Not from adults who deeply care about them and who are responsible for their physical, psychological, and social development. Before I move any further, I just want to clarify what I mean by sexuality education. It aims to improve knowledge and understanding through the provision of information, which is appropriate to the age, development, and circumstances of the young person. Questions such as, why are my periods painful? Or a question that boys in many countries ask, if I don't have sex now, will it weaken my manhood for later? It aims to promote self-awareness and equitable social norms. How would you feel if someone teased you about your appearance or your body odor?
[5:30]Can a girl tell a boy that she finds him attractive and would like to go out with him, or is that only for boys to do? Equitable relationships. And to build social skills to make and follow through on choices. If someone's looking at you or touching you in a way that you don't want, how do you tell that person to stop in a way that is assertive? If a friend calls you and insists that you come to a party and you don't want to go because you know that somebody will be there whom you don't want to meet, how do you say that without spoiling the relationship? So sexuality education is much more than giving information. It's actually to prepare young people for a healthy sexual and reproductive life. But also a happy sexual and reproductive life. We often talk about sexuality in the negative connotation. But we all know what an important source of pleasure and happiness it is to all of us. My second point. There is considerable evidence from around the world that sexuality education does not harm children and adolescents, and it can do a lot of good. One of the main reasons for resistance to sexuality education is that is the concerns that it plants the idea in children's minds to have sex before they're ready to have sex. The corrupting influence of sexuality education. In fact, there is no evidence of this. Studies from around the world in different cultures points to the fact that sexuality education does not lead to early or increased sexual activity. Studies also show that sexuality education improves knowledge and understanding. It can bring about positive changes in sexual behavior, such as delayed sexual initiation, use of condoms and contraceptives, and in a smaller proportion of cases, it can reduce negative health outcomes such as sexually transmitted infections or unwanted pregnancies. There's also growing evidence that it can build autonomy and confidence in girls and boys, and better communication in relationships. But this is data from studies. What about data from countries? And there is data. There are a number of Western European countries which have compulsory sexuality education programs in schools. The Netherlands is one of them. There are a number of other Western European countries which don't have such programs. England is one of them. Now, England and the Netherlands, more or less, are in the same socio-economic level. The age of initiation of sexual activity among girls in England and the Netherlands is more or less the same. But the level of adolescent fertility in England is three and a half times to four times higher than it is in the Netherlands. Convincing evidence that sexuality education provides useful benefits. Let me move to my third point. Children and adolescents need and have a right to sexuality education.
[8:57]Sadly, studies show that their needs are not being met, their rights are not being fulfilled. Studies from around the world show that that adolescents are unaware and unprepared for the changes that are occurring in their bodies at the time of puberty. Many girls learn about menstruation on the day their period starts, and they are shocked and scared to see their menstrual blood for the first time. Many boys wake up confused and alarmed when they see their nocturnal emission. It certainly happened to me, and there was no one to talk to. Many adolescents are unaware and unprepared to avoid unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections when they start sexual activity, which is often during adolescence. Or to refuse unwanted sex from peers or influential adults. Most of the co-sexual activity occurs from adults in the family or in close contact with the family. And lastly, adolescents are unaware and unprepared about where to seek help and how to seek help when they need to do so. So what this means is that because we are shying away from sexuality education, the children and adolescents in our lives, our sons, our daughters, our nephews, our nieces, are suffering from health and social problems that they don't need to. We are failing them. We're failing them at home. We're failing them at school. Many parents truly believe that their sons and daughters don't need sexuality education. They say, they will learn as they go, just like we did. Some of them believe in the value of sexuality education, but they're too embarrassed to broach the subject. So, either they don't talk about it, or what they say is, behave yourself. Don't get into trouble like that girl down the street and bring shame to the family. So, what happens is adolescents are left with mixed messages. On the one hand, the message from home is that all sex before marriage is wrong and risky. And the popular media floods them with images and messages that casual sex, whirlwind romances are glamorous, are adventurous. It's not surprising that in in in many of our countries, including in Moldova, many young people have mental health problems, have anxiety, have depression because of these kinds of issues. We're failing adolescents in school. And this is a big tragedy. In many schools, there are some kind of sexuality education and program in place, token programs. But they reach adolescence very late, that is one. They do not reach the many adolescents who are out of school or the adolescents with learning difficulties, or hearing difficulties, or visual difficulties, or adolescents living with HIV. There the focus is very narrow. They tell the focus is no sex before marriage, abstinence messages. The focus is on biology. This is the structure of the fallopian tube and the uterus, not about relationships, not about feelings, or about practical issues such as, where can I get contraception? And there's no link to services.
[12:40]So, what happens is again, we're failing them in such an important way. The reality is that in most countries, it's easier for adolescents to access hard core pornography with a few clicks of their mouse, than to talk to an adult in their family or in their neighborhood and ask them questions like, why are my nipples tingling? Why is my left testicle hanging slightly lower than my right testicle? Why why are my breasts not as big as the breasts of my sister at the same age? These are questions you cannot ask anyone. But you can access pornography. I have colleagues who work for Save the Children in Mali and Niger where internet penetration is very poor. But you can buy a little chip for two dollars, put it into your small phone and watch any amount of, many hours of of pornography that you want. My fifth and last point, a small and growing number of countries is overcoming these barriers to sexuality education and putting in place good quality programs, large-scale programs. This report from UNESCO documents some of them. One of them is from Nigeria, a country which has so many other difficulties. Another one is from Colombia in Latin America. And factors that contributed to the success of these programs are strong governmental leadership, partnership with non-government organizations, universities and civil society. The availability of adequate resources. And the recognition that putting these programs in place will take a long time and will take effort and energy to do. We think that Sweden has a great program today. But I know from people who worked in Sweden in the early days of sexuality education, that when they started the programs, they were slapped on the street. Or they had bricks thrown in through their window. They also faced the resistance that we are facing now. But they had the courage to move and we need to move in Moldova and around the world. In conclusion, we are at a crossroads. For years, we have shied away from sexuality education. We have denied adolescent sexuality.
[15:21]We have refused to accept the arguments and views, false arguments, such as sexuality education corrupts our young people. Or it's against our culture. Another common argument is blame, this is all the fault of the West. They're corrupting our young people with their influence. And even if we know all this, we want to avoid this. We can continue to shy away from sexuality education. On the other hand, we can take the challenge to confront this issue. And to own this issue, and to change the situation. Each one of us can make a small difference in our homes, in our schools, in our workplaces, in our communities. We don't need to wait for the government, but through our actions, we can bring the government on board. And we can work to the with the government. Through these actions, we can create a better world for the children and adolescents of today and tomorrow. But for that to happen, we have to start in small steps and we have to start now. Thank you.
