Uganda’s education ministry has homework—to write a new policy on how it will teach children about sex
The court case was not without surprises. Ismail Mulindwa, a senior official in the ministry, argued that teaching young people about sex could lead them to masturbate or become homosexual. Conservative views on sex education start at the top. President Yoweri Museveni and his wife Janet, the minister of education, have long promoted celibacy as the best way to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. Both are against condoms, arguing they promote promiscuity.
These alarming figures have been exacerbated by the government’s blundering response to covid-19. It shut schools at the start of the pandemic almost two years ago and is only reopening them this month. By June last year the teenage-pregnancy rate had jumped by 17% from March 2020. Officials drafting the new policy could perhaps learn from past mistakes. An earlier framework in 2018 suggested lifting the ban on sex education. However, it also suggested teaching children that the best way of not catchingis not to have sex. It barely mentioned contraception. All it said about masturbation was that no one should do it. Its only reference to gay sex was the name of the law banning it.
The framework mentioned God 62 times and made “God-fearing” its main guiding principle. Yet some pious folk were still not satisfied. Some Muslims felt the policy was too Christian; some Christians thought it was not conservative enough. The Reverend Stanley Ntagali, the archbishop of the Anglican Church of Uganda, denounced the framework as part of the “’s pro-promiscuity, pro-gay, pro-abortion sexual agenda”.
Education is a start, but it is only one piece of the puzzle. Some 28% of married Ugandan women who want to use contraceptives cannot get them, making Uganda’s “unmet need” for contraception higher than the average for sub-Saharan Africa, where 25% still do not get it. It is not just the education ministry that has plenty of homework to finish.
Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités
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