Mary Guinn Delaney. Photo: UNESCO Santiago
(UNESCO) – Ten years after its first edition, UNESCO has published a fully updated International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education translated into Spanish on 30 August 2008.
The document advocates quality comprehensive sexuality education to promote health and well-being, respect for human rights and gender equality, and empowers children and young people to lead healthy, safe and productive lives.
“Based on the latest scientific evidence, the International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education reaffirms the position of sexuality education within a framework of human rights and gender equality,” says UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay. “It promotes structured learning about sexuality and relationships in a manner that is positive and centred on the best interest of the young person. By outlining the essential components of effective sexuality education programmes, the Guidance enables national authorities to design comprehensive curricula that will have a positive impact on young people’s health and well-being.”
The International Technical Guidance is designed to assist education policy makers in all countries design and implement accurate and age-appropriate curricula for children and young people between five and eighteen years old.
Based on a review of the state of sexuality education around the world and drawing on best practices in the various regions, the Guidance highlights evidence that comprehensive sexuality education:
– Helps young people become more responsible in their attitude and behaviours related to sexual and reproductive health
– Is essential to combat the school dropout among girls due to early or forced marriage, adolescent pregnancy, and sexual and reproductive health issues
– Is necessary, as in some parts of the world, two out of three girls report having no idea of what was happening to them when they began menstruating, and pregnancy and childbirth complications are the second cause of death among 15 to 19-year olds
– Does not increase sexual activity, sexual risk-taking behaviours, or sexually transmitted infections (STI), including HIV. It also presents evidence showing that abstinence-only programmes fail to prevent early sexual initiation, or reduce the frequency of sex and number of partners among the young.
The publication identifies an urgent need for quality comprehensive sexuality education to:
– Provide information and guidance to young people about the transition from childhood to adulthood and the physical, social and emotional challenges they face.
– Tackle the challenges posed by sexual and reproductive health issues, which are particularly difficult during puberty, including access to contraception, early pregnancy, gender-based violence, sexually transmitted infections and HIV and AIDS
– Raise awareness about HIV prevention and transmission, as only 34 per cent of young people around the world have demonstrate accurate knowledge
– Complement and /or counter the vast material of quality that young people find on the internet, and help them face increasingly common cyberbullying.
Mary Guinn Delaney, UNESCO Regional Advisor, Education for Health and Well-Being for Latin America and the Caribbean, highlights the publication as “an opportunity for the region, given that there is new knowledge about issues especially relevant to Latin America and the Caribbean, such as cyber-bullying and gender violence.
This document will serve as a point of reference to continue the design of the conceptual framework of Comprehensive Sexuality Education, the development of curricular content and programme implementation, whether new programmes or the review of structure and content of ongoing activities.
Additionally, the Advisor mentions the important contributions of Latin America and Caribbean to the process of updating the Guidance, especially those gathered in a Regional Meeting of Experts in Sexuality Education organized by UNESCO Santiago in late 2016 in Panama. On that occasion, experts from various institutions and countries in the region shared their expertise and formulated recommendations that were subsequently taken into consideration in the global review process.
“In Latin America and the Caribbean, and in the world, there is a wide range of contexts in which sexuality education is delivery, with diverse curricula, education structures, cultures and priorities. The application of this Guidance is entirely voluntary, but they are sold, based on a universal conceptual framework, supported by scientific evidence and with content and recommendations that are applicable anywhere in the world,” mentions Claudia Uribe, Director of the Regional Office for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean. (OREALC/UNESCO Santiago).
The Guidance was produced in collaboration with UNAIDS, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UN Women, and the World Health Organization (WHO).
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