Who are young people?
What is sexuality education?
Why do we have to think outside the box during COVID-19 pandemic period?
The United Nations defines youth as persons between the ages of 15 and 24 with all UN statistics based on this range, the UN states education as a source for these statistics. The UN also recognizes that this varies without prejudice to other age groups listed by member states such as 18–30
Sexuality education is the provision of information about bodily development, sex, sexuality, and relationships, along with skills-building to help young people communicate about and make informed decisions regarding sex and their sexual health.
Sexuality education is high quality teaching and learning about a broad variety of topics related to sex and sexuality, exploring values and beliefs about those topics and gaining the skills that are needed to navigate relationships and manage one’s own sexual health. Sexuality education may take place in schools, in community settings, or online as we’re doing currently
There is COVID-19 all over the world and several people have died of the infection and many people are still being infected. Unfortunately however, this has not stopped people from experiencing and expressing sex related needs. As much as COVID-19 is ravaging the world, high level sexual activities are ongoing, people still have sexual desires, even people in Isolation centres surprisingly would not be out of sexual activities especially when they are stable
Despite Covid19, people can still be pregnant and commit abortion, despite COVID-19, young people in particular still engage in high risk sexual activities
In less than one month, we have distributed thousands of Condoms to young people on the field, what all these tell us is the fact that the hype of COVID-19 should not distract all of us in Public Health practice from addressing the sexual needs and the associated intricacies in our daily works especially among young people
Why young people?
Young people are the most vulnerable to most of the public health challenges because they are active, they like to experiment, majority of them may be in school with premature freedom and most of them lack the required life skills to cope with the demands on them. They are the highly neglected population. They are adventurous. They take a lot of risks.
They are target for rape, they are abandoned by most parents to cater for themselves. They engage in transactional and intergenerational sex which expose them to huge risks, hustling up and down mostly with what they have.
Government has no plan for them, tomorrow looks also uncertain for some and unfortunately, most reproductive health intervention are not targeted at them. The paucity of youth friendly centres say so much about this.
In view of all these, necessity is places on us to use every opportunity to reach them with Comprehensive Sexuality Education. Sexuality Education could happen in school which we call the curricular based. Unfortunately, schools are closed now, that means curricular base sexuality education is on suspension.
Good enough, we have other non curricula base opportunity to reach these people not only with knowledge, information but with services, the scope of sexuality education that Public Health practice must focus includes:
- Human Development (including reproduction, puberty, sexual orientation, and gender identity)
- Relationships (including families, friendships, romantic relationships and dating)
- Personal Skills (including communication, negotiation, and decision-making)
- Sexual Behavior (including abstinence and sexuality throughout life)
- Sexual Health (including sexually transmitted diseases, contraception, and pregnancy)
- Society and Culture (including gender roles, diversity, and sexuality in the media)
- Coping with stress and other Psychological issues that are comorbid to sexuality, etc
Hence, all young people need these services for them to survive without being hurt especially at this moment.
While many people especially young people pay attention to their physical health- no sickness, they also do well to dress well, many don’t pay attention to sexual health.
First, parents, don’t open sexuality education with their children early enough, Cultural issues, religious matters etc are responsible.
Many young people attain age of puberty without any sexuality education from their parents who are meant to be their first teacher, Schools teach it to give you knowledge but will not teach you skills, Open communication on sex education with parents is expected by maximum age 10 and now many are saying it should start much earlier.
Now, how do they learn about personal hygiene? How do they learn about ordinary menstruation, ovulation, abstinence, being faithful, use of Condoms etc ?
Age of open sexuality education is still a problem. NGOs have been attacked in the past base on open communication on sexuality education especially in the north.
Now, let’s conclude with what we need to help young people with Comprehensive Sexuality Education in a period like this:
First, the internet is opened for all to learn from especially learning the right content. Because the internet has also help to complicate some of the sexuality issues we are talking about.
We now need more NGOs to do something within their space. I’m looking forward to when community based youth friendly centres will spring up that will not be funded by donors but by community where young people can go and learn.
We need to open the space for parent – child communication on sexuality education. We need to also bring learning that will target the parents so as to change their orientation on all these.
It is unacceptable that young people still bear the highest brunt of infections and the consequences.
With all our interventions, HIV prevalence among young people is still on the high because they were not exposed to prevention information on time.
Those who have sexual needs cannot openly discussed it due to home based, school based, community based and health facility base stigmatization.
In this period of lockdown, a country like Netherlands initiated some innovative intervention to address the sexuality matters we’re discussing. Health practitioners are paid to visit homes to distribute commodities, provided FP services and online education to their citizenry.
Some young girls are lockdown with their boyfriends because parents have lost hold of them. What happen to them if they do not have access to services?
- Pregnancy galore
- Abortion galore
- Infection galore
- Case fatality galore…
Men will always want sex and young women will be the target. As much as we educate and promote abstinence, it is best when every individual pay attention to whatever will make them live a worthy sexual life.
All young people should build their life skills to help them with the pressure that can expose them to sexual risk.
Abstinence is best for every unmarried person, for those who cannot abstain, it is safe to maintain one healthy relationship, especially when you ascertain the sexual health status of your partner.
For those who cannot be faithful, use condom; we have condom for both males and females. Condom is safe and provides double protection. Protects against infection and pregnancy if used correctly and consistently.
We have more than 100,000 pieces of Condoms in stock for the communities we serve which we give free to people, but most young people don’t use. They claim they can’t lick sweet with the wrapper.
These preventive measures are there. But the reality is that most young people falter.
1. Abstinence: What skills are required?
2. Mutual Fidelity: what skills
3. Correct and consistent Condom use: how do ladies in particular negotiate for it?
These questions we hope to answer in our next design of Knowing series.
We need to share Experiences and best practices that work with our societal context. This has worked best for almost all programmes. Honestly however, most of them have been the clog in the wheel of progress when it comes to sexuality education.
Dr Atibioke is a social scientists. He currently works with Association for Reproductive and Family Health (ARFH) where he manages the Community System Strengthening (CSS) project – a programme supported by the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
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