Sex education will ruin children’s lives, district leaders say

The district leaders in the Sub-region have said government should not introduce sex education in schools because it will ruin the lives of children.

The State Minister for Northern Uganda, Ms Grace Kwiyocwiny, said: “Sex is something that is sacred and we should avoid this because children will practice what they will learn. This will ruin the lives of our children and they will not protect the cultural norms in our society.”

This week, the Bishops under Uganda Episcopal Conference rejected the policy saying it did not include roles of family, children in early childhood and in lower primary whom they said will be exposed to content and life skills which are not appropriate for their age.

Kwiyocwiny says some of the materials could be sneaked in to promote homosexuality among children: “We recently found books promoting homosexuality being hidden in some schools. We do not want to hear promotion of homosexuality in schools. If you are going to talk about rights and responsibility, it should not be about homosexuality because we do not want our children to go astray.”

His sentiments were echoed during the Reproductive Health Training on Wednesday, where the district leaders also said this was a recipe in ruining the future of the children.

The Principal Prisons Officer at Arua government prisons, Mr John Bosco Owiro, during the training said that: “Sex education will encourage children to practice what they will learn in class. Why should we have sex education now yet sex is something meant for adults? If you teach a child how to use a condom, automatically, he/will practice it once he gets a condom.”

They suggested that the topics in the schools be carefully chosen and the age for sex education should be determined by the school administrators.

In March, Ministry of education approved National Sexuality Education framework, which officials said was developed over two years through consultations of relevant stakeholders.
Pupils between 10 to 12 years are expected to be able to define their purpose and commit to sexual abstinence.

The LC3 Chairperson for Pajulu Sub-county in Arua district, Mr Malon Avitia, told Daily Monitor that the policy would enable the pupils have self-awareness. “Sex is not offence, but it becomes so when it is done with underage persons. Parents should be able to guide these children because these days in this world of pornography, it becomes difficult to control them,” he said.