Date 2016-07-15
Category ARTICLES
S3x education on the continent is blind to the realities of its many young people, Kagure Mugo argues. It’s time to get real and to help them stay safe.
Growing up, the entirety of my S3x education boiled down to three main pieces of advice: stay away from boys, make sure you marry a good boy and have babies (hopefully boys). I’m not sure what they tell the fellas but I’m guessing it’s some gendered version of the same old-fashioned ‘advice’. The problem with this is that it leaves you woefully unprepared for the messy, real-life business of touching naughty bits with other people’s naughty bits.
Despite the fact that there is a long history of S3x education in many African countries – ssengas in Uganda, for instance, or kitchen parties in Zambia – when it comes to modern-day S3x education we like to pretend that we all got here through some immaculate conception. We don’t talk to kids about safe S3x, or even the joys of S3x, and instead we teach them to abstain from S3x until marriage. This leaves them in the precarious position of having to figure things out by themselves.
STDs on the continent – a silent epidemic
We all know the statistics – that there are more than 23 million people living with HIV/Aids in sub-Saharan Africa – but have we given any thought to the fact that there are an estimated 4 960 320 people in Ghana living with an STD, or 1 968 800 in Rwanda? Recent studies on the prevalence of chlamydia among pregnant women have shown rates of 6% in Tanzania to 13% in Cape Verde. According to the World Health Organisation, the highest increase rate of curable STDs per 1 000 people is in sub-Saharan Africa. Truth is there are far too many people on the continent living with some form of STD but we seldom hear much talk about this. Moreover, we know that children (18 years and below) are having S3x, so why are they not being taught the kind of S3x education that takes into account all these realities; the kind of education that equips them to make the right choices?
Although the S3x education framework tends to be governed by the ABCs – Abstinence, Be Faithful and Cond0mise most children on the continent, it seems, are only being taught the A: abstinence (until marriage, that is). The abstinence doctrine is not only being propagated in the home (as evidenced by the many silences around S3x) but also in the public sphere. A noteworthy example is the ‘Bursaries for Virginity’ scheme in South Africa, which is widely viewed as unconstitutional and reckless, causing the Commission for Gender Equality to recommend that it be scrapped.
Proponents choose to ignore the fact that countless studies have proved that abstinence-only methods do not work and merely ‘teaches lies to ill-informed virgins’. In the United States, 80 percent of abstinence-only programmes were found by a 2004 congressional committee to teach “false, misleading or distorted information”.
To add to that, a whole host of lies whirl around S3x education programmes that are linked to religious entities, such as the notion that Cond0ms cause cancer and that promiscuous women are more prone to cervical cancer, or even that one can get pregnant from a Bl0w j0b. The latter is a particular rumour that sometimes originates from teenagers themselves.
From all the evidence at hand it is clear that children on the continent are having S3x, so why are we not making sure they are doing it safely and are equipped with the requisite information?
A worrying decline in the practice of safe S3x
In 2010, the World Health Organisation reported a spike in the number of HIV cases, which was especially high in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr Francis Ndowa, an expert in public health and the prevention and control of S3xually transmitted infections, says: “Some young people are assuming that now that there is treatment for HIV, it has a cure – which it has not.” It would also seem that young people are beginning to not practice safer S3x, placing themselves at risk of catching all sorts of S3xually transmitted diseases and infections. In order to tackle these issues, there is undoubtedly a need to further S3x education and to take it out of the realm of the taboo.
To tell young people that they should simply abstain from S3x is reckless because it leaves them extremely vulnerable. They are going to have S3x and that is the truth of the matter. So there is a definite need to talk to them about birth control, protection and everything else in between.
S3x education is not about teaching kids to have S3x but about equipping them to protect themselves. This does not only extend to preventing the transmission of STDs but also to empowering them to know when something is happening that is not right, i.e. S3xual abuse. It will allow them to make more informed decisions with each other than “So, uhm, I wonder what it would be like to rub our Nak3d bodies together…?”