Sexuality education can help reduce child marriages
Uganda has one of the highest incidences of child marriages, teenage pregnancies and other forms of sexual abuses and exploitation against children. Recent statistics actually present a growing trend of sexual transgressions against children. The latest Uganda Demographic Health Survey (UDHS) 2017 report indicates that 40 per cent of girls get married before the age of 17 years.
According to the survey report by ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development released in August 2018, of 18-24-year-old Ugandans, one in three girls (35 per cent) and one in six boys (17 per cent) reported experiencing sexual violence during their childhood. This included 11 per cent of girls experiencing pressured or forced sex.
Of Ugandans aged 13-17 years, one in four girls (25 per cent) and one in 10 boys (11 per cent) reported sexual violence in the past year (2017). These statistics indicate that children and young people are continuously exposed to unrestricted sexually explicit/clear and obscene materials, which often portray inaccurate information about sex and sexuality.
This information is accessed through the Internet, social media, mass media outlets such as newspapers, radio, television and telecommunications, as well as from peers. Yet, there is worse more to worry about. Today, children and young people especially girls are exposed to sexual and gender-based violence including rape and sexual harassment.
The challenge here is that whereas Uganda has an ample legal and policy framework to address the problem, both the parents, the poor enforcement notwithstanding, children and other stakeholders in our communities have failed to appreciate both the importance and urgency of mainstreaming age-specific sexuality education in both households and school curricula.
The challenge in communities where any talk on sexuality is considered a taboo and more so where such talk involves children and young people, children are deprived of critical information to protect themselves which predisposes them to a myriad of sexual problems like sexual reproductive health problems, including HIV/Aids, STIs/STDs, teenage pregnancies and child marriages with all its attendant problems.
The foregoing challenges, therefore, point to the relevance of the National Sexuality Education Framework that was developed by the Ministry of Education. The overarching objective of this framework is to empower the young people in Uganda to be better prepared to prevent and protect themselves against infections (HIV, STDs, non-communicable diseases), sexual abuse, early sexual debut, teenage/unplanned pregnancies and school dropout and also to be able to immediately respond, mitigate and get desired relief when they are infected, abused, engaged in unplanned early sexual activities.
Importantly, the dissemination of this critical information is based on age-appropriateness, meaning that sexuality education messaging is age-appropriate in respect to content, context, communication since the consumers are children of varying age and levels of comprehension.
The framework groups learners into five categories, namely: Early Childhood (3 to 5 years); Lower Primary (6 to 9 years); Upper Primary (10 to 12 years); Lower Secondary (13 to 16 years); and, A-level/Tertiary Institutions (17+).
Accordingly, for each level of learning, relevant areas to be covered by development messages essential for the learners to know and the associated values and skills have been identified under each key topic within a theme. While all the four themes are covered for each group of young people, only the relevant topics are presented to a given level of learners.
As a social worker, my experience working with an organisation that works to end child marriages and teenage pregnancies in Uganda, I have noted that escalating cases of sexual abuse against children and young people in form of child marriages, defilement, teenage pregnancies, child prostitution, and child pornographic acts are partly caused by the lack of knowledge by parents, schools and communities on how to equip children with age-appropriate sexuality education.
It is also due to limited knowledge on response mechanisms for sexually abused children, among other factors.
Hence any critical but also appropriate messaging that empowers our children to understand themselves and then be able to protect themselves against sexual violations needs to be welcomed rather than be opposed.
Ms Kahunde is the advocacy manager
at Joy for Children Uganda.
[email protected]
