The draft report on sex education, drawn up by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, says that children as young as five should be taught about explicit sex acts, abortion, homosexuality and sexually transmitted diseases.
The new guidelines, which were worked out by UNESCO, the World Health Organization and UNICEF during the last two years and cost over £200,000, are supposedly designed to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS, improve sexual health and reduce the number of illegal abortions through sex education.
Among the most controversial recommendations in the guidelines are that teachers should discuss subjects such as masturbation with children from the age of five. The guidelines state that teachers should discuss the idea that ‘girls and boys have private body parts that can feel pleasurable when touched by oneself’ with pupils who are just five years old.
They also recommend that by the age of 12 children should be taught about the ‘right to and access to safe abortion’.
UNESCO describes the guidance as ‘an evidence-informed and rights-based framework to give children and young people access to the knowledge and skills they need in their personal, social and sexual lives.’
Mark Richmond, UNESCO’s global co-ordinator for HIV and AIDS, said:
‘It doesn't mean that teaching about masturbation must take place at five years old. It may be mentioned, but it is up to parents and teachers about whether this is done. The guidelines are forms of advice.’
Asked if five was ‘a little early to understand the concept of sexuality’, Nanette Ecker, one of the authors of the guidance, replied:
‘Children are born sexual beings and as adults, die sexual beings. Sexuality extends from birth to death.
'Children begin to receive messages about sexuality when they are very young, but soon realise that parents and other adults are too embarrassed to talk about sexuality issues, so they talk about sexuality with their peers. Unfortunately, this means they can be dangerously misinformed about sexuality and sexual health.
‘We need to recognize that many children and young people are sexually abused and at great risk of sexual and reproductive health problems such as rape, unplanned pregnancy, STIs and HIV.
‘Using a building-block approach, we therefore need to start sexuality education young, such as teaching 5- to 8- year olds the correct terminology about their bodies and how they work so they have the language to ask questions or report abusive, coercive behaviour or sexual violence.
‘In recognition of these facts, as well as the burgeoning rates of STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and HIV, we cannot wait for the evidence for comprehensive programmes at an early age, since we already have strong positive evidence for programmes beginning in the early teens,’ The Daily Telegraph reports.
However, the guidelines provoked serious controversy across the world.
Ann Widdecombe, Conservative MP for Maidstone and The Weald and a Privy Counsellor, said:
‘This is wholly inappropriate and is destroying parental responsibility. It is parents who should determine the pace of revelation, not the authorities.
‘What one child may be ready to learn about at the age of ten, another child may not be ready for until 13. It should be up to parents to make these decisions.
‘When it comes to innocent children at the tender age of five years old, it is absolutely appalling these guidelines suggest that they should be taught about subjects such as masturbation,’ Ms Widdecombe added.
Nadine Dorries, another Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire who has three daughters, also expressed her concerns. She said:
‘Educating children and young people to believe that access to legal abortion is a right delivers a message which suggests that abortion is a lifestyle choice – a method of contraception as opposed to the incredibly traumatic and distressing experience it is for most young women.’
A draft of the guidelines which was issued in June has been attacked by conservative and religious groups for similar reasons – recommending discussions of homosexuality, describing sexual abstinence as 'only one of a range of choices available to young people' to prevent disease and unwanted pregnancy, and suggesting a discussion of masturbation with children as young as 5.
Colin Mason, the Director of Media Production at Population Research Institute, said:
‘If you ever have a situation where kids need to be taught earlier than their adolescence, this is not the way to do it. It’s very graphic and encourages practices like masturbation, which conservative Christians and others feel are wrong.
'We think it’s a kind of one-size-fits-all approach that’s damaging to cultures, religions and to children,’ Mr Mason added.
(See The New York Times report)
The new report will be issued to governments, local authorities and education bodies across the world by the end of October.
In the United Kingdom, the Government has said that sex education will become mandatory from the age of five in schools in September 2011. It is submitted that parents will keep the right to withdraw their child from the school if they wish. However, the Government will keep this right under constant review.
Under the current guidelines, even if parents use the freedom to withdraw their child, they still have to provide the child with alternative sex education with the compulsory ‘core entitlement’.
The Government directs those who teach children to provide knowledge of same-sex relationship beginning from teaching about homosexual civil partnership from age seven.
(For the background see the earlier CCFON report)
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