Ana Cole
9/10/2009
9:40pm
Summary
Paris has came up with a set of international sex education guidelines. They are aiming to reduce HIV infections among young people but this has provoked criticism from conservative groups. They believed that the program would be too explicit for young children. They programs states legal abortion is a right. The people who would receive the guidelines include education ministries, school systems, and teachers around the world. A draft was issued in June, which was attacked by conservative and religious groups. They were mainly from the United States. They felt that it was uncalled for about discussing homosexuality, describing sexual abstinence, and for suggesting a discussion of masturbation with children as young as five. Colin Mason from the Population Research Institute said that he did not think kids should be taught about sex education before their adolescence years. He also believes that the guideline is too graphic. Since the guideline has caused so much criticism, the Unesco agency has removed its June draft and has delayed the release of the final document. The Unesco HIV/AIDS coordinator states that the main purpose of the guideline is to try to empower young people with knowledge that could actually save their lives.
Reaction
I believe that the international sex education guideline would be a great method to inform children to a certain extent. I don’t agree that you should discuss some of the matters to children between the ages of five and eight. Children this age do not need to be discussing masturbation. Instead they should be learning the correct names or certain parts of their bodies. I also don’t believe abortion should be discussed at all. I believe that children between the ages of nine and fifteen should discuss the extent of sexual abuse, unplanned pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases. I feel that sex education needs to be started early in order to provide specific information and skills in order to navigate safely from adolescence to adulthood.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/world/03unesco.html?ref=world&pagewanted
1 comment:
I think that we, America especially, needs to rethink the way we view, think, and talk about sex. In this crazy mixed up world, it could be the most viable and untouched link to our original nature we have. If people would talk about it more, there wouldn't be a taboo associated with it. I think making it such a taboo and dirty subject does nothing but encourage teenagers, who are most likely undereducated about how to protect themselves and their partners. As for the young children, preschoolers masturbate, they do it because it feels good and we tell them no, that's bad, your body and what feels good to it are bad. They may not be old enough to understand S.T.I.'s and abortion but they wouldn't be harmed by a healthy and positive dialogue about their bodies, the bodies of others, or sex in general.
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