-A good tool or not for keeping HIV at bay
A CALL made by the Phillipines government last Tuesday for sex education in schools has come on the heels of an observation made by Executive Director of the Caribbean Broadcast Media Association and Chair of the Global AIDS Campaign, Dr. Allyson Leacock for the media to frontally address the issue of sex in relation to the spread of HIV in their prevention messages. Dr. Allyson, who was at the time addressing a group of Guyanese media workers and representatives of NGOs, declared:  “I have always felt that our media have been too timid in talking about sex. In reality, we don’t like to talk about sex, and we promote it as if it’s dirty. I see no reason why we cannot talk sex.  You do not have to be obnoxious in getting your messages across.”

Noting that  HIV and sexual violence are issues on the front burner, she said that there is ever increasing need for these issues to be addressed frontally.  But the local media needs to be more aggressive in this regard.  “I think that we are too easy to use clichés and superficial phrases that really do not get to the meat of the matter,” D. Leacock observed.                                                                              

Meanwhile, the article coming out of the Phillipines states:  “Starting this year, a basic sex education curriculum will be piloted in 80 public elementary schools and 79 high schools in the Philippines.  Beginning with students ages 11-12, the lessons will focus on personal hygiene, physical changes during puberty, gender relationships, and ways to safeguard against sexual abuse and exploitation.”

The article continues:   “It will be better if the schools teach sex education rather than children just picking this up from just anywhere like the Internet,” said Education Secretary Mona Valisno.

It noted that sex is a taboo subject in many families, so children learn about it from peers or the Internet.  In addition, in the Phillipines, a tenth of the population works abroad, often leaving behind children who are raised by grandparents, relatives or neighbours. 

But the sex education initiative is being criticized by the Roman Catholic Church, the country’s dominant religious body. “Sex education should be the primary responsibility of the parents,” said Monsignor Pedor Qitorio, spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

And according to a Panos briefing document: “Some adults believe that sex education for young people violates religious teaching; is insensitive to cultural traditions and encroaches on the parental domain. Opponents of sex education argue that it encourages and condones sexual intercourse before marriage.  They oppose courses in schools or demand that only messages on abstinence be given.”

In light of the fact that  HIV and sexual violence against children continue to wreak havoc across borders, there are global calls for young people to be equipped with a weapon to protect themselves against the onslaught.

That weapon is information and appropriate education to make them understand what they are up against, and to help them defend themselves when confronted with potential danger, stakeholders contend.

In relation to children infected with HIV, UNAIDS gives the following statistics:

* At the end of 2008, there were 2.1 million children living with HIV around the world.
* An estimated 430,000 children became newly infected with HIV in 2008.

·         Of the 2 million people who died of AIDS during 2008, more than one in seven were children. Every hour, around 31 children die as a result of AIDS.

At the 2008 International AIDS Conference in Mexico, Centro Banamex was replete with calls from countries around the world for action to address the plight of millions of children being affected with HIV each year.

In its report to the conference, the Government of Argentina, alluding to a National Law, No. 26.150  approved  in 2006, which establishes obligatory participation by schools all over the country in a Comprehensive Programme for Sexual Education for students at all levels, noted:

“This law has still not been implemented and there is still no access to sex education and HIV/AIDS education in schools.  The National Ministry of Education does not comply with the mandatory implementation of sexual education.”

And a message from the Government of Sweden submitted  that a ‘scaled up’ response to the pandemic is required worldwide. “HIV and AIDS must be part of daily life, in schools, at the workplace and at faith based organizations  meetings,” it said.

Arguing that ‘Prevention’ must stay at the top of the agenda, it made it clear that, the complexity of the pandemic cannot easily be captured in acronyms and slogans.

“An effective response requires an openness to the drivers of the pandemic.  We have to talk about sexuality;  intimacy and sexual relations; men who have sex with men; sexual and other violence; drug use; people who buy and sell sex;  migrants and trafficking in human beings.  We must address the pandemic with open eyes and open minds,” it concluded.

Here in Guyana, at a UNICEF sponsored Workshop in the city some years ago, Ministry of Education’s Health and Family Life Education officials, educators and NGO representatives discussing “Children on the Brink” , brainstormed a proposal for the introduction of sex education in schools.  At that meeting, an experience was shared, where a parent turned up at a school with a cutlass to attack a teacher for merely naming a sex organ during a health education session.

The HFLE official conceded that such parents probably intend that in teaching health education the teacher deals with ‘the head down to the neck’ skip other parts then move from the legs down to the toes.” 

Later, in 2007, officials of the  both the Ministries  of  Health and Education promised that ‘in the near future’ HIV/AIDS education would be introduced in schools and would be treated as an ‘examinable’ subject.  That is yet to happen.

But the good news is that the Ministry of  Health now has several Youth Friendly Health Centres from which young people can glean some knowledge and information about STIs and other health related issues.

A recent UNICEF report addressing the issues, makes this assessment of the situation:

Many adolescents engage in multiple risk behaviors.  Adolescents injecting drugs, for example, may sell or buy sex in exchange for drugs. This interplay between injecting drug use and unprotected sex, much of which is transactional, is at the centre of many HIV epidemics. Yet, prevention strategies often focus on just one risk group or behavior, and rarely address combinations of risk-taking.

Evidence shows that young people around the world are more likely to reduce risk behaviours when they are offered relevant information, skills, and services in an enabling and protective environment. Young people everywhere need life skills education that imparts accurate information about HIV transmission and promotes compassionate attitudes to those affected and at risk.

The HIV/AIDS Mailbox would like to suggest that, in the interim, the teaching of Assertiveness skills to children in schools would be a very good proactive approach to equipping children with a tool which teaches them to ‘stay their ground’ and know how to respond wh
en confronted with situations which would challenge or compromise their integrity.