Coming of Age in the Classroom: Religious and Cultural Barriers to Comprehensive Sexuality Education
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COMING OF AGE IN THE CLASSROOM RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL BARRIERS TO COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION Vagisha Gunasekara Coming of Age in the Classroom: CONTENTS Religious and Cultural Barriers to Comprehensive Sexuality Education Vagisha Gunasekara 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 2017 ISBN: 978-967-0339-37-5 4 LIST OF ACRONYMS 5 INTRODUCTION This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non- 6 SITUATING COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION WITHIN THE SOCIO-POLITICAL AND Commercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit ECONOMIC CONTEXT OF DEVELOPING http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Any part of the text COUNTRIES of the publication may be photocopied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, or adapted and translated 8 INFUSING SECULARITY WITH MORALITY: to meet local needs, for non-commercial and non-profit purposes. However, SITUATING RESPONSES TO CSE WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF STATE FORMATION IN BANGLADESH the copyright for images used remains with respective copyright holders. AND INDIA All forms of copies, reproductions, adaptations, and translations through mechanical, electrical, or electronic means should acknowledge ARROW 11 HOW RELIGION INFLUENCES POLICY AND as the source. A copy of the reproduction, adaptation, and/or translation PRACTICE OF CSE should be sent to ARROW. For commercial use, ask ARROW for permission 17 CONCLUSIONS at [email protected]. 18 RECOMMENDATIONS Published by: Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW) 20 ENDNOTES 1 & 2 Jalan Scott, Bricksfield, 50470 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 24 REFERENCES Telephone 00 603 2273 9913/9914/9915 Fax 00 603 2273 9916 E-mail [email protected] Web www.arrow.org.my Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ARROW.Women Twitter @ARROW_Women Youtube ARROWomen Pinterest arrowomen Production Team: Author: Vagisha Gunasekara Overall Coordination: Azra Abdul Cader External Thematic Reviews: Moonmoon Gulshan and Rachel Arinii Internal Thematic Reviews: Azra Abdul Cader, Hwei Mian Lim, Pooja Badarinath, Maria Melinda Ando, and Sivananthi Thanenthiran Copy Editing: Sharni Jayawardena Publications Technical Support: Maria Melinda Ando Layout/Graphic Design: Nicolette Mallari Cover Photo Credit: Peek Creative Collective/Shutterstock Gunasekara, Vagisha. Coming of Age in the Classroom: Religious and Cultural Barriers to Comprehensive Sexuality Education. Kuala Lumpur: Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW), 2017. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thematic paper would not have been possible without the insightful and rich evidence produced by Nazme Sabina on Bangladesh and by P. Balasubramanian, Rajalakshmi Ram Prakash, and N. Sri Lakshmi on India. The contributions of these national reports are sincerely acknowledged. The advice and guidance of Azra Abdul Cader, Programme Manager at ARROW, throughout the writing of this thematic paper is gratefully acknowledged. 4 Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW) LIST OF ACRONYMS AEP Adolescence Education Programme AFLE Adolescent Family Life Education CBSE Central Board of Secondary Education, Bangladesh CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women CSE Comprehensive Sexuality Education FGM Female Genital Mutilation ICPD International Conference on Population and Development IPPF International Planned Parenthood Federation LGBTQI Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, and Intersex MEB Madrasah Education Board, Bangladesh NCERT National Council of Educational Research and Training, India SMAM Singulate Mean Age at Marriage SRHR Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights STIs Sexually Transmitted Infections Coming of Age in the Classroom: Religious and Cultural Barriers to Comprehensive Sexuality Education 5 COMING OF AGE IN THE CLASSROOM: RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL BARRIERS TO COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION Vagisha Gunasekara INTRODUCTION There is substantial evidence pointing to the alignment of people’s reservations, panics, and anxieties about young people’s sexual behaviour Young people, between ages 10 and 24, comprise 1.8 billion of with deep religious and political predispositions the world population today. This unprecedented proportion of in forming a strong oppositional force to young people,1 while creating potential for promising new areas SRHR interventions that aim to educate young of social progress and innovation, is concentrated in 48 of the people about their rights around sexuality and world’s least developed countries.2 While life circumstances, opportunities, and obstacles to improve their lives vary from reproductive health. country to country, poverty, discrimination, lack of social mobility, and limited access to information and advice on health.5 Second, the concept of marriage is limited to carving out their future hinders the promise of most young heteronormative unions. The embeddedness of these people. Too many—especially girls and women—are deprived of assumptions in the approach to SRHR in most countries leaves sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR),3 which shape behind the vast majority of unmarried individuals and those virtually every aspect of their lives. that fall outside heterosexual binary genders. Contrary to international norms, many countries criminalise same-sex For example, while HIV-related deaths are decreasing globally, sexual acts, which puts LGBTQI youth at risk of severe physical young people remain particularly vulnerable to the disease; and mental harm. The lack of legal recognition does not render an estimated 100 million to 140 million girls and women alive an imperative for service providers to ensure that SRH services today have undergone some form of female genital mutilation are relevant and accessible to LGBTQI individuals.6 (FGM); and every day, in developing countries, 20,000 girls under 18 give birth, and many become pregnant before they There is substantial evidence pointing to the alignment of are physically mature.4 Hence, young people’s receiving people’s reservations, panics, and anxieties about young adequate preparation for their sexual lives become central people’s sexual behaviour with deep religious and political to achieving SRHR for all. However, the reality is that efforts predispositions in forming a strong oppositional force to to equip young people with knowledge, skills, attitudes, SRHR interventions that aim to educate young people about and values needed to determine and enjoy their sexuality— their rights around sexuality and reproductive health.7 Recent physically and emotionally—have been met with resistance evidence from ten national studies8 on the influence of and other obstacles in a number of countries. Central to this religion on SRHR undertaken by ARROW in partnership with resistance are several normative assumptions about human national partners suggests that the discourse and the practice sexuality. First, there is an assertion and an assumption that of SRHR is shaped by rapidly changing political, economic, individuals engage in sexual activity only after marriage. Norms and social contexts. These contexts are in a state of flux with or laws that prohibit consensual sexual activity between young entangled processes of patriarchy, development, state ideology and/or unmarried individuals can place these individuals at risk and practice, religious interpretations, and socio-political of harm by hindering their access to sexual and reproductive movements of religious fundamentalist character. Constraints 6 Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW) arising from such complex entanglements limit young people’s The term “comprehensive” refers to the access to the information and services they need to make encapsulation of the full range of information, informed and responsible decisions about their sexual and reproductive lives. skills, and values to enable young people to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights and This paper elucidates evidence which underscores anxieties to make choices about their health and sexuality. and panic about sexuality and sexual behaviour of young people influenced by movements advancing a distinct religious identity, and the implications for advocacy on advancing SRHR. that information on sexuality alone is inadequate, and that CSE Synthesised in this document is evidence from two countries— programmes must strive to equip young people with knowledge Bangladesh and India—on Comprehensive Sexuality Education and skills they need to determine and enjoy their sexuality in all (CSE), an area of controversy (to varying degree) in both spheres of life. As such, it entails seven essential components: countries and thematic focus areas for the broader project. gender, SRHR and HIV and AIDS (including information on Evidence from each country stem from national studies on services and clinics), sexual citizenship, pleasure, violence, the influence of religion on CSE, and are qualitative in nature. diversity, and relationships.11 The collated evidence is supported by secondary literature, employed to frame the complex ways in which state policies The term “comprehensive” refers to the encapsulation of the and people’s perceptions link controversies around CSE to full range of information, skills, and values to enable young religious beliefs and interpretations, socio-political movements people to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights and to bearing fundamentalist ideals, and state ideology and response. make choices about their