Sex education is critical

Collen Takaza (University of Zimbabwe) & Blessing Siyakurima (Midlands State University)

THE impact of averting sex education on the youths in the several sections of our society is a disfavour in their future.

Zimbabwe is under patriarchal conditions, where cultural norms and social unrest have effects on gender relations. Thus, understanding and addressing adolescent sexuality is of paramount importance in light of young women’s increased defencelessness to early child-bearing, HIV, and gender/sexual violence.

It remains critical to understand how young people make meaning of sexuality at a time when studies suggest that adolescent awareness of and information about sexually risky practices does not necessarily translate into safe sex.

Patriarchal values produce sexual double standards whereby, for example, virginity has greater importance for females compared to males.

A young woman’s virginity is alleged to augment marital bonding between the spouses while engaging in premarital sex is regarded as misbehaving and equated with prostitution.

In Zimbabwe, female virginity is valued, based on gender unbalanced relations of power, and supported by family values.

However, scholarly views, indicate that female virginity is contested and challenged especially as young women in undesirable socio-economic circumstances often use sex and sexuality as a bargaining tool in transactional sexual relations.

Though issues to do with sexuality are taught in private settings in some sections of our society, there is still a significant number of families who avoid teaching sex education.

Society has chosen to avow sex discussions as taboo according to tradition and it is in this respect that culture has empowered the young people to get into harmful behaviours which society is not yet ready to contain.

Premarital sex that has dominated universities and colleges is a result of the negligence proffered to sex education. Young adults are growing up divorced from the didactic content which instils respect for sexuality.

In April 2019 a critical research work with the title “Zimbabwean secondary school Guidance and Counselling teachers teaching sexuality education in the HIV and AIDS education curriculum” was published.

In this research work the authors, Ephias Gudyanga, Naydene de Lange and Mathabo Khau, pinpoint challenges that negatively impact the teaching of sexuality education in Zimbabwean secondary schools.

The authors have noted that teaching of Guidance and Counselling (G & C) is impacted negatively by numerous factors such as the status of G&C in a school. They argue that it not offered as an examinable subject and it is the only subject taught once a week for about 35 minutes.

Another argument that is also supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is that the timetable for the Zimbabwe teacher is overloaded.

As a result, teachers end up resorting to explanatory approaches rather than participatory approaches to teaching. Teachers and students also seemed not to pay much attention to the subject and the subject suffers from the scarcity of learning materials.

Some trained teachers were not aware of how to teach the G&C subject while others reported that they were diffident to teach sexuality education.

The major reason pinpointed to such topics clashing with their cultural values and beliefs, that sex was taboo to talk about, for instance, that the vernacular for human reproductive organs is taboo.

All these issues compounded teachers’ failing to teach G&C and sexuality education within HIV and AIDS education.

Observations have, however, pointed to the encouraging role that the church (in this case Pentecostal movements) is playing in teaching sexuality education in light of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). Young people, before getting married are now urged to go for counselling and HIV and Aids testing.

Young people during their meetings are urged to abhor premarital sex as this is ungodly.

The use of condoms and any reproductive health facilities are, however, not issues open for discussion as this equates the church to the secular world in terms of approach.

Teaching of sexuality education in this critical institution centres largely on encouraging, purity hence no sex before marriage.

Those who are found on the other side of the law are punished by way of being disciplined.

In a young people’s meeting in one of the Pentecostal movements these writers noted that teaching sexuality issues remain pivotal. One question from a participant indicated how religion can limit people in understanding how they should go about life, not offending other congregants.

Can a Christian work for a company that distributes condoms to young people and adults around our communities?

This was the question.

We submit that the disturbing trends of increased school drop-outs, sexual abuse, and premarital sex among young people point to the need for increased teaching of sexuality issues.

We also submit that what we see today — people as young as 12 years being sexually active is in actuality the historicity of the present. Our past did not have as many young people getting into these acts before marriage.