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IN 2016 UGANDAN officers burst into the halls of Green Hill Academy, a extremely regarded major faculty in Kampala, Uganda’s capital. They had been on a curious mission. The minister for ethics and integrity had ordered them to grab copies of Jacqueline Wilson’s “Love Lessons”, a e book about how a 14-year-old woman known as Prudence falls in love along with her artwork trainer. Conservative Ugandans threw a match, fretting that “erotic” and “distorted” books had been brainwashing their kids. Within months all types of sex education had been banned. Last November a court lifted the parliamentary ban and gave the education ministry homework—to write down a brand new coverage on the way it will educate kids about sex.
The court case was not with out surprises. Ismail Mulindwa, a senior official within the ministry, argued that educating younger folks about sex might make them masturbate or develop into gay. (Presumably he thought these had been unhealthy issues.) Conservative views on sex education begin on the high. President Yoweri Museveni and his spouse Janet, the minister of education, have lengthy promoted celibacy as the easiest way to stop sexually transmitted ailments. Both are in opposition to condoms, arguing they promote promiscuity. And the primary girl appears to assume that contraceptive tablets not solely fail to stop being pregnant but additionally erode morals, turning Ugandans into sex-crazed individuals who “have sex, take pills, conceive and abort”.
Ignorance is dangerous. Though deaths from AIDS, a illness brought on by the HIV virus, have fallen sharply, partly as a result of many individuals with it are actually getting handled, the virus continues to be a giant explanation for dying in Uganda. Less than half of younger Ugandans know find out how to keep away from catching HIV whereas having sex. Few appear to know a lot about contraception both. Around 1 / 4 of teenage women are pregnant or have already got a baby. Some 15% are married by the age of 15; round half have tied the knot by 18.
These alarming figures have been exacerbated by the federal government’s blundering response to covid-19. It shut faculties at the beginning of the pandemic nearly two years in the past and is just reopening them this month. By June final 12 months the teenage-pregnancy price had jumped by 17% from March 2020.
Officials drafting the brand new coverage might maybe study from previous errors. An earlier framework in 2018 prompt lifting the ban on sex education. However, it additionally prompt educating kids that the easiest way of not catching HIV is to not have sex. It barely talked about contraception. All it stated about masturbation was that nobody ought to do it. Its solely reference to homosexual sex was the identify of the legislation banning it.
The framework talked about God 62 occasions and made “God-fearing” its primary tenet. Yet some pious people had been nonetheless not glad. Some Muslims felt the coverage was too Christian; some Christians thought it was not conservative sufficient. The Reverend Stanley Ntagali, the archbishop of the Anglican Church of Uganda, denounced the framework as a part of the “UN’s pro-promiscuity, pro-gay, pro-abortion sexual agenda”. A coalition of spiritual leaders agreed on just one factor: to reject the coverage altogether.
Officials drafting the brand new framework would possibly take into account what has labored elsewhere. UNESCO has discovered that educating younger folks about condoms is much more practical at curbing pregnancies, HIV and different sexually transmitted ailments than solely educating them abstinence. A higher framework must also attempt to assist younger folks keep away from exploitative or violent relationships, says Rose Wakikona of the Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development, a Ugandan non-profit organisation that introduced the case that overturned the ban. She describes a separate case of a nine-year-old rape sufferer, who testified {that a} man “slept on her” as a result of she was unable to explain the act.
Education is a begin, however it is just one piece of the puzzle. Some 28% of married Ugandan girls who wish to use contraceptives can not get them, making Uganda’s “unmet need” for contraception greater than the common for sub-Saharan Africa, the place 25% nonetheless don’t get it. It isn’t just the education ministry that has loads of homework to complete. ■
This article appeared within the Middle East & Africa part of the print version underneath the headline “The birds and the “be quiet””
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