Gender affairs scholar calls for sexuality education in all schools

GENDER affairs scholar and Newsday columnist Dr Gabrielle Hosein believes there is urgent need for comprehensive sexuality education in schools across the board.

She alluded to staggering statistics which suggest one in three boys and one in five girls between 13 and 17 are already sexually active.

Hosein said the teenage pregnancy rate also suggests that nine per cent of births are to girls under 19.

“Additionally, child sexual abuse and forced sexual initiation are major issues, as is sexual harassment in children’s and adolescent lives,” she told Sunday Newsday via WhatsApp.

“These are real issues that children are dealing with, while adults refuse to talk about it with them, using a national curriculum to reach the most vulnerable.”

Hosein also believes there need to be curricula that teach acceptance of children who are LBGTI.

“This is because they are children who deserve access to schooling just like other children, and such curricula would focus on non-discrimination, non-violence, reduction of hate and fear-driven bullying and kindness toward others simply because they are human, not because they meet our ideals of being masculine or feminine.”

She believes it’s a “giant myth” that an LBGT-identifying adolescent will "poison" others.

“Far from it. More poisonous is teaching our children to treat each other with fear and loathing.”

Hosein argued comprehensive sexuality education isn’t just about sex, but about teaching consent, respect, self-determination, responsibility, health, self-protection and rights.

“Unfortunately, there is no political will for that here and so there is no risk of any of this being introduced at any time.”

She contends the only ones who will lose are the most vulnerable children.

Hosein was responding on Saturday to RC Archbishop Jason Gordon’s statement that comprehensive sex education cannot be introduced to the curricula of denominational schools without the consent of the denomination.

As it stands now, he said, the Concordat prevents this from happening. The 1960 Concordat is an agreement on the terms under which denominational boards would run assisted schools, made between the government and the RC church, which had the largest number of denominational schools at the time.

Gordon, who spoke on Thursday during the Shepherd’s Corner programme on Trinity TV, also said he had heard the US and UN were pressuring Caricom to introduce comprehensive sex education and that the government was going to face significant pressure from international agencies on the matter.

The archbishop, on the programme, also weighed in on allegations being made through WhatsApp statuses and voicenotes that consent forms for the TT National Learning Assessment were linked to medical procedures to be done on students. The Ministry of Education has dismissed these allegations as false.

There were also concerns that books featuring LBGTI characters would be used in schools because they were being sold in bookstores. Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly said there has been no change in the booklist for the impending academic year.

Hosein, former head of UWI's Institute for Gender and Development Studies, argued that the current Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) curricula do not include comprehensive sexuality education.

She noted the proposed revisions focused on gender-based violence (GBV) prevention and made no changes to any long-approved and taught curricula related to sex, reproduction or sexuality. “The curricula remain abstinence-focused and in no way mentioned even the words LBGT or transgender, nor introduced any content related to these.”

Hosein added, “It would have been far more responsible of the archbishop, sensing an increasingly virulent language of discrimination and fear emerging, to show his familiarity with what was proposed and to be able to say what he found necessary and acceptable and what exactly he had concerns about.

“Otherwise, he, like others, continues to feed the perception of an untrustworthy UN plot to pressure a hapless and gullible Caricom into imposing harmful and age-inappropriate revisions on unconsenting parents.”

She believes Gordon has the power to bring “reasonableness, reality and calm, instead of feeding a moral panic that has emerged about content that is simply not in any of the proposals for the curricula to reduce and prevent violence.”

Hosein said at no time was anything sought to be imposed on schools. In fact, she said, there were two consultations with faith-based organisations and opportunities to send written comments.

“Those doors for discussion were always open and remain so today. So posturing in public about the boundaries established in the Concordat misrepresents the fact that denominational schools have access to the proposed curricula and there's an open door to find a solution that allows us to engage in violence-prevention education in children's best interest, as called for by the population.

“And, it should be noted, there was never a chance that any LBGT curriculum was ever going to be introduced in schools. That is simply not a real issue in Trinidad and Tobago today.”

Asked why she believes there is such a fear of a comprehensive sexuality education programme in schools, Hosein said, “Fear results from misinformation and from lack of information.”

She said the Ministry of Education should have communicated with schools, parents and teachers more than a year ago, presenting the proposed revisions in an accessible and explanatory way, allaying fears and misconceptions early on and preventing those who are spreading vague and erroneous information from capturing parents’ understanding of the issue.

“Fear remains today, while the ministry irresponsibly remains silent. If proposed revisions to address GBV were simply explained, even us(ing) the HFLE Master Trainers and teachers who have long taught the curricula, parents’ concerns would have been answered by experts, rather than by religious leaders or paranoid individuals whipping up a frenzy through social media.”

TTUTA president Martin Lum Kin said the ministry has already said there is no intention to change the syllabus to incorporate comprehensive sex education.

He believes the HFLE and biology subjects address aspects of sex education which were deemed appropriate at the point in time it was developed.

“The curriculum division would have taken into consideration the societal context in choosing the relevant facets of the topic," Lum Kin said via WhatsApp.

He added TT remains “highly influenced”by various religious ideologies and to change the policies or narrative will require open discussions by all the parties.

“TTUTA stands committed to facilitate such discussions should we be called upon.”