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Atuutilik
February 10, 2006
Feb. 12 is Sexual and Reproductive Health Day
Nunavut needs sex education curriculum
MADELEINE COLE
Human sexuality is a beautiful complicated thing. It’s about biology and culture, emotions and economics, politics and history. Whether a young person grows up to respect their body and celebrate their sexuality has everything to do with the teachings they have received. These teachings happen at home and at school and everywhere in between.
Lessons, good and bad, come from every direction — from parents and peers, television, books, the internet and more. In homes where older people model loving relationships, respect for women and men, and healthy choices, there is a much greater chance that a child will live those values.
Let me tell you a story or two. In clinic this week I met a young couple midway through their pregnancy — and midway through high school. Facing an unplanned pregnancy, they were lucky to have supportive parents who agreed early on to adopt. However, as the pregnancy progressed, the parents-to-be have now decided to raise the baby by themselves. With lots of help, they hope to get back to school next fall.
The love between these two was obvious, as was their respect for their future child: she was not smoking or drinking. Parenting will be a profound life change and delaying pregnancy may have in many respects been a better path, but I have every expectation they will grow together as they love and nurture a new life.
I also met at least 10 young women with much less happy stories. Two had been sexually assaulted and had infections to prove it. Alcohol was involved in both situations making the victims feel embarrassed and guilty. Another girl had the profoundly bad luck to get pregnant the first time she’d ever had intercourse. The young sperm donor was nowhere to be found and I have my doubts he bore any of the angst and emotional turmoil this child is facing.
An older woman (at the ripe old age of 16), faced with a positive pregnancy test and difficult choices, told me that she had some good sex education teaching in Grade 8 but none thereafter: “I guess they thought we knew it all”, she commented sadly. And I can’t count the number of young men and women who have attempted suicide following a break-up. Where are the relationship and coping skills?
What are we teaching our children? Young people have the internationally recognized right to information about sexuality. It is well-established that withholding sex education (or teaching abstinence only curriculums) leads to higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies.
In Nunavut we still don’t have a consistent curriculum. Judging from our rates of sexually transmitted infections and adolescent pregnancy as well as the many questions I hear every week about sexuality, we are in desperate need for this situation to be remedied.
We should all be on side — parents, educators, health care providers, churches, policy makers and most importantly youth. We need to work together for comprehensive, unbiased sex education curriculums taught by enthusiastic educators. Youth need to demand it — it is their right to know.
If there were only five sexual health priorities I could emphasize and pass on to my son when he grows a bit older, they would be:
1. Avoiding unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections is a job for women and men.
2. Drinking alcohol often leads to sexual assaults and unplanned pregnancies — best to avoid drugs and alcohol, but if you choose to use, do it in a safe place.
3. Everyone should know about emergency contraception (the morning after pill.)
4. You have the right to good sexual health education in our schools — but if you are not getting the information you need, book an appointment with a nurse, nurse practitioner, community health representative or doctor to ask about infections, birth control and any sexuality issues. And it will be confidential too!
5. Last but not least, you can ask me, because I am your loving parent.
Feb. 12 is Sexual and Reproductive Health Day in Canada. Remind yourself that you are a beautiful sexual being!
And I encourage everyone to do something to advocate for a society where adolescents grow up without shame, celebrating their sexuality, respecting themselves and others, choosing when and whether to be sexually active or reproduce, and avoiding sexually transmitted infections along the way.
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Nunavut 99
