(See also “Comprehensive Sexuality Education”)
Overview
According to International Planned Parenthood Federation, one of the largest providers of controversial comprehensive sexuality education programs worldwide:
“Non-formal (or informal) settings include extra-curricular educational activities based on a voluntary learning environment, for example in youth organizations, religious settings, youth-led organizations, sports clubs or after-hours sessions at school.”[1]
“Informal” sexual and reproductive health education programs, also known as “comprehensive sexuality education” (CSE), is sex education delivered electronically through the Internet or through phone apps.
When CSE advocates can’t get their controversial programs to children through traditional ways, they try more “informal” channels. UNESCO has created a phone app to deliver CSE to children because of:
“…difficulties in accessing information and health centres, taboos, denial of sexuality among adolescents, …”
and “for fear of confidentiality breach, stigmatization and even reprisal, many young people, especially minors, fear seeking advice from formal services and adults.”
“Civil society associations, for their part, are not always free to provide services to adolescents most at risk of sexual and reproductive health problems.”
“In its strategy on education for health and well-being, UNESCO’s priority is to ensure that all children and young people benefit from comprehensive sexuality education”[2]
UNESCO actually admits its priority is to ensure that “all children and young people benefit from comprehensive sexuality education.” They are trying to get around restrictions against CSE, by getting it to children through their phone app that parents and guardians can’t control.
In UNESCO’s 2018 International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education, UNESCO states:
“[M]ore and more young people have joined together to call for their right to sexuality education … At the 2012 Global Youth Forum of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), young people specifically called on governments to ‘create enabling environments and policies to ensure that they have access to comprehensive sexuality education in formal and non-formal settings, through reducing barriers and allocating adequate budgets.’”[3]
The “barriers” (see “Barriers” section) they are referring to are parents and community values that oppose graphic CSE education. A way to get around those barriers is to get their CSE phone apps into the hands of children.
Talking Points
1. When it comes to children, we can’t be too careful especially when it comes to sexual matters. We are uncomfortable with the terms “informal” or “nonformal” in the context of sex education as that takes the teaching entirely out of the hands of parents. Who knows what they might be taught online? We have seen some highly controversial online programs, and we don’t want those to fall in the hands of young children.
2. We have been made aware of new phone apps that are being used to teach children sex education, away from the eyes of parents under the banner of “informal” education. When it comes to sex education, parents are the ones who should be teaching if anything is going to be taught informally to their children.
[1] International Planned Parenthood Federation. (2016). Everyone’s right to know: delivering comprehensive sexuality education for all young people. Retrieved from https://www.ippf.org/sites/default/files/2016-05/ippf_cse_report_eng_web.pdf
[2] UNESCO. (2017, September 26). A mobile application for adolescent sexuality education soon to be released. Retrieved from https://www.unesco.org/new/en/dakar/about-this-office/single-view/news/a_mobile_application_for_adolescent_sexuality_education_soon/
[3] UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women, WHO. (2018). International Technical Guidance on Sexuality. Retrieved from https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/ITGSE_en.pdf