Teaching our children about the ‘S’ word
The assumption that boys and girls under 18 are 'too young' to need sexual and reproductive health information ignores reality
At independence, Pakistan had a poorly educated population and few schools or universities. Although the education system has expanded greatly since then, debate continues about the curriculum, and, except in a few elite institutions, quality remains a crucial concern of educators.
According to data provided by the Ministry of Education, there are 256,088 educational institutions of all categories in Pakistan, with a total enrollment of 37,462,884 students. Despite considerable development in this field, Pakistan still has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the literacy rate in Pakistan is 55 per cent, making the country stand at 160th among the total countries of the world.
For a country that ranks among the bottom 30 of the 192 member countries of the United Nations with regard to the rate of literacy, it is little wonder that discussion on sexuality is often misperceived as being synonymous to pornography and its understanding is mostly limited to the act of sex only.
In Pakistan, human sexuality is the subject of strong ideology and moral views and traditions, often rightly or wrongly presented as part of religion. There is little known about the sexual and reproductive knowledge and behaviours of 12 – 18 year olds. The assumption that boys and girls under 18 are “too young” to need sexual and reproductive health information and services ignores reality and environmental factors and denies young people from acquiring practical knowledge and skills they need to protect themselves and their partners from Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI), pregnancy, unsafe childbirth or abortion , and sexual abuse or violence.
Advocacy efforts over the last decade or so, mostly geared by civil society organizations have been propagating that young people have the right to receive comprehensive information, education, health services, and other social and legal supports regarding their sexual and reproductive health and rights, however lack of empirical evidence has always been a major hurdle in influencing comprehensive change at the policy level. The need to make policy level amendments is all the more pressing in view of the fact that Pakistan is currently undergoing demographic dividend and with over 64 per cent of its population consisting of young people. It is important to design interventions to meet the unique needs of this group.
While Pakistan is one of the 164 signatories of Dakar Education for All (EFA), which very clearly identifies and states “Life Skills” as a basic learning need for all young people, the Government of Pakistan is yet to implement this document in letter and in spirit. It is however encouraging that after concerted efforts from various indigenous and international organisations working on SRH Rights, references to Life Skills Based Education have been included in National Education Policy 2009 and National Youth Policy 2009. Moreover, the Ministry of Education has developed a Life Skills Based Education curriculum for students of grades 9 to 12; however it is yet to be implemented in schools.
Puberty begins in panic
A recent study on the ‘Status of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights’ conducted by an international organisation, World Population Foundation, Pakistan recently manifests that puberty begins in panic for most of the young people, since they almost never have any prior information about the biological evolution of their own bodies. More often than not, young people obtain information about sex and sexuality from a wide range of sources including each other, through the media including advertising, television and magazines, as well as leaflets, books and websites. The research suggests that while some of this information might be accurate, the major chunk of it is misleading – placing the youth at greater risk of abuse, exploitation and acquiring Sexually Transmitted Infections.
The disregard towards the importance of timely sexuality education for young people goes to show that most young people in Pakistan are not made aware of the biological and psychological changes that occur at the onset of puberty, leaving most of them confused, in guilt and most of all open for exploitation. The flip side of the picture also shows that while parents and/or caregivers tend to withhold sexuality-related information, young people always manage to find one or the other source to sate their curiosity.
For a country that is undergoing a youth bulge, Pakistan can no longer afford to ignore the importance of sexual and reproductive health. We can continue to remain oblivious and allow our youth to grow up amid unnecessary confusion or take on the responsibility to ably nurture our young for sustainable growth and development.
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of The Express Tribune.
A very serious blog on very sensitive topic….Recommend
Some schools, like Dawood Public school, Karachi initiated the idea but the school was criticized for ‘corrupting the youth’, and imparting ‘obscenity’, therefore the issue was brushed under the carpet.Recommend
Well.. At some point i agree with your thoughts and research… but do you really think Sexual Education is more important than civic education? I think first we have to educate people so they can live in society with manners.. Sexual Education is not important than civic education..
Another thing is giving proper Islamic education… Islam teaches everything…If you can follow Quran… you can get every type education you need…. We should focus on giving Real Education not just Western Adopted Education … I aint trying to be extremist here… Neither I am Molvi… But Being a muslim we should consider this.. :)Recommend
Good blog…i think its high time we take this matter seriously and maturely….i think discussing it from an islamic perspective would suffice without parents complaining…Recommend
I can vividly remember how the channels telecasted live from Dawood Public School where parents were chanting slogans and calling for violence against the Principal and the young girls were shown crying as they could not bear the burden of being taught the biology of the other gender.
Sex Education is an oxymoron in Pakistan since the majority of the people deem that since there should be absolutely no interaction (let alone contact) between opposite genders before marriage, there is no point in educating them. If pressured, they deem teaching abstinence in the religious context as enough while denouncing you for being a RAW/CIA/MOSSAD agent on a “anti-islam” mission. While ignoring that even in the holiest of contexts, i.e. nothing before marriage, educating adults about the realities of life is far important than ignoring them altogether.
In a region where the local languages have failed to develop appropriate words for sexual intercourse (the exact ones in the Lughat are spoken by absolutely no one) and where there exist no terms for human genitalia (again the Lughat words are based on their function and did not form out of the necessity of creating words), nothing better can be expected in this field. Innuendos and offensive slangs serve the purpose of communicating terms associated with sexuality, how can we expect appropriate education in this regard?Recommend
It is first time that i ever read a positive “s” relating paragraphs. Otherwise we do ready to publish/read rape news but positive news of s education are always hard to find…any how it is essential for whole to have prior knowledge about the things that be a cause to make another human….It is one of the biggest world wide work and being nation we are still in the dark…I hope if you started this road to s education will very soon got traffic jam.Recommend
Very good article. You have touched a topic that should have been the part of education decades ago. In a country like Pakistan where 9 year old girls are wedded and even sent to live with in laws.Where the girl is expected to give birth as soon as she is married which maybe 13 years of age, how can sexual education about physiology, preventive health be any harmful activity. Imparting knowledge arms any individual against difficulties such as disease , poverty, illiteracy and death as an unnatural phenomenon. Years ago they taught human physiology in classes. In 60′s the Pakistani society was more forward looking and was open to information and knowledge. In 2010 when Pakistan can come into top ranking for bestiality on google search, it cannot accept a decent education on sexual health. Next time it will top on STD’s , AIDs and even male homosexuality when the female population will be annihilated by disease and death during and due to child marraiges and childbirth.Recommend
Sex-Ed is a topic I hv always been vocal on. Too often we claim that these things are not from our religious and cultural background and should not be talked about. I say that parents should take the lead and teach their kids about puberty, their evolving bodies, their evolving thought process, and the prohibiotion of religion on the subject.
Most people I know lacked any sex-ed upto a point that when we eventually got married everyone assumed abhi tak tau samajh gaya hoga. That may have worked then but with the direction our youth is headed (following the ways of the west) we need to stress heavily on abstinence AND teach them all about sex.
I still hv a long time before my 2 year old reaches that stage but Insha’Allah I will be doing the “birds & bees” talk with him when the time comes.
-AlyRecommend
excellent blog. I love the fact that tribune is working on such major issues through this medium.
Maybe Dawood public school’s step was too a little too bold given the situation in pakistan, and may not be wise to include sex education in mainstream curriculum. but yes i do believe there should be special awareness sessions in schools preferably separate when kids reach their 9th/10th standard, or body awareness sessions when they reach their puberty or are about to.Recommend
Modern education system does one thing i.e. Indoctrination and we have been indoctrinated to believe that whatever west does is the only right thing to do.
What baffles me is our thinking that we have just discovered how to live in the last 5-6 decades & “ancient people” didnot have any clue about anything.
We need to understand that wisdom had always been there and there were generations after generations who were leading very decent, civilised & blissful life and at the same time managing this “S” issue very well.
There is something called natural instinct and it is there in every living being and has been there since time immemorial.
Pls just go through some real statistics and find out the great mess west is in on this issue, despite a very elaborate and successful “S” education system.Recommend
Good and bold article for a change of taste but consider that there are few lessons that are taught by the nature itself .
God created humans, animals, and angles. Animals have just desires and angles have instruction to follow whereas humans have desires as well as instructions to act upon it.
Can I ask some questions.
1-How do you think that the prophets, messengers and their families learn the “S” word.
2-How do you think that the pious scholors have generation and they spread their teaching all over the world.
3-Why our religion give emphasis to read Quran and perform Salat for five times and day.
If you have time in this Ramzan, I request you to read Quran with its urdu meaning for at least two time. You cannot imagine what sort of details are available in every verse. You can learn the teaching as well as you will also learn your rights and duties.
May God Bless us in persuit of our learning.Recommend
Yes i agree with saherRecommend
wow. great research and writing.
me too simply don’t understand why there isn’t sex education in our schools? it’s seems like in our culture if you use SEX word as if you have committed the rape, this training of sex education should be done from Ground level, but at the same being a so called Islamic country i don’t think we even give right religious education to our young one’s that’s why most of them always live in self denial and neglect the fact that killing a human is one of the biggest sins defined by God, to summarize i believe 50% of our education system needs to be changed, but the question is who is gonna do it WE or the fake degree holders.Recommend
Hmmm….I want to post a comment that may not be suitable since some boys also read and leave comments…..or Moderator may reject it…but an elder in family in 1940s ( in her teens ) had no knowldge on this, she had started some feminish problem… didnt tell her mom, was scared that she had caught some disease,,,,,she took lot of cold water and the blockage was the result…..lack of ado and S education…..results in such cases….
So a gr8 piece and very bold too…….Recommend
Agree with Saher. Also teach this from religious point of view and people will understand.Recommend
I think “sexual education” is an important subject and must be discussed with the young. Islam also emphasizes on it. It’s just the ill-educated Mullah’s who have made very subject a taboo for us.Recommend
I think this blog is a bold one to start with..
I just have one thing to say…
some people in comments went for instinct and hence say that there is no need for S education…
Other comments are extra-bold and are trying to suggest that such things be taught at every level…may be at age 6-12 as well…!!!
Best thing would be in between…..It is just a proposal ..it may have lacunae but it can be refined…
at least I am not being a mere critic…I am coming up with solutions..
S EDUCATION STEP-1: AGE 6-12:
In this period; information related to one’s own cleanliness of private parts, chastity, sharm-o-haya and related things be taught. and s education realted things may at best be avoided , even if s education is felt necessary then give just a carefully arranged hint of such ideas ..nothing else….example pupils may be taught that they must not be overtly frank in a physical way with opposite gender etc etc..
S EDUCATION STEP-2: AGE 12-18:
In this period; information related to one’s own gender and changes in body at around 12-16 may be given through Cds and books but such books should NOT contain information about opposite gender….because knowing ones own sexuality is more important at this age….
S EDUCATION STEP-3: AGE 18-21:
In this period; information related to one’s own gender as well as opposite gender, behaviour, characteristics and other things which are all necessary to be known before marriage, should be given on CDs and books …again no need for class room teaching….instinct will teach the rest of knowledge ,,,,the cds and books will give just missing links…..
I have tried to be sobre in my language usage . i hope comment will not be deleted and this way of doing things will be acceptable to all….because just like you can not teach MSC subject to class 8 pupil, similarly what is to be learnt at 18 should not be told at only 8 or 12…otherwise we will see young minds trying to practice something which is best done later on in adult life……….that too should only be in a legal way…..Recommend
A very interesting article…In a country where child marriage and early pregnancies are common…where literacy rate is low Sex education is a must for every child so they should know when and how they can protect themselves from rape, abuse and sexually transmitted diseases.Why don’t we educate the child at home and a child should always know that an adult is always around and ready to help them.Recommend
Beti
Sex education is as important as all other. Never feel guilty of your sexuality. Telling somebody that contracting malaria is their own fault because they are poor, filthy and uneducated while withholding all chances of education and hygiene from them, is the kind of ignorance we face everyday.Recommend
If we follow the quran in its true manner and learn quran by its translation then i thinks most of our problems will be solved , including sex education.
In pakistan 10years back , such type of topics are discussed with hesitation among young people .
today its discussed with the help of media, social networking, internet awareness . people at younger age are feeding more information in the current era.
You look 15 years back , lack of media , internet , social networking were obsolete. these type of discussion should be continued at national levels and our governemnet , public and private sector should help educate this issue positively.Recommend
i can agrey with writer but i can metion one thing that we live in islamic state .if we talk a thak topic our told us u have no maner . firs we cange our eleder minfd.in india , every teen ager talk this topic very easily but y we notRecommend