UN Agency Tries to Impose Abortion and LGBT Rights in Sex Education Everywhere

By | August 29, 2019

NEW YORK, August 30 (C-Fam) A UN Agency is urging governments to use deceptive anti-democratic tactics to “overcome social opposition” to comprehensive sexuality education that promotes abortion and LGBT rights.

An internal policy paper published this summer by the UN agency for culture and education, UNESCO, endorses undemocratic methods to promote explicit and controversial sex education when parents and teachers object to it. The paper repeatedly highlights abortion rights and social acceptance of homosexuality as components of comprehensive sexuality education that are often opposed.

The UNESCO paper justifies even recourse to strongarm tactics blaming “negative public attitudes” about comprehensive sexuality education “fueled and propagated by organized opposition and lobbying.”

Comprehensive sexuality education is perhaps one of the most controversial subjects in UN negotiations and international development. As the Friday Fax previously reported, UN member states have rejected the notion of “comprehensive sexuality education” repeatedly and there is no conclusive evidence of improved health outcomes or reduced risk-taking behavior from its adoption.

Even so, international aid agencies from Europe and America have worked with UN agencies for decades to get it in schools across the globe. But they have met with stiff resistance from politicians, teachers and parents.

The UNESCO paper begins by lamenting “the continual hesitation about, if not retreat from, the goal of rolling out comprehensive sexuality education.”

The paper calls for laws and policies that give governments a “clear mandate and justification to help it carry out the actions necessary” to impose comprehensive sexuality education.

It recommends that public consultations about comprehensive sexuality education be rigged to stifle the voice of concerned parents and teachers, as well as religious and faith-based groups.

“Where broader consultations are conducted, strong leadership is essential to avoid a lengthy and protracted process,” the paper states.

“It may be difficult to reach consensus, particularly on more sensitive topics such as contraception, safe abortion, sexual orientation and gender identity,” it emphasizes.

And it emphasizes that “opposition from religious groups may be strong and can stall comprehensive sexuality education curriculum development.”

The paper goes on to list examples where such tactics have been successful, including Ghana, Kenya, India, Thailand and Zimbabwe. UNESCO supports comprehensive sexuality education curricula in 23 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the paper reports.

The paper criticizes countries where comprehensive sexuality education policies have been adopted because teachers continue to emphasize abstinence as the best method to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. It urges countries to adopt monitoring strategies to ensure the “quality” of programs in line with UN technical guidance on comprehensive sexuality education to avoid this.

The paper also complains of persistent and successful opposition in some countries.

“Strong community resistance to comprehensive sexuality education, or even the prospect of such resistance, is a real risk,” the paper complains.

It cites the example of Uganda, where backlash to the programming of UN agencies led to a revision of the sex education curriculum in 2016.

Now, Uganda’s revised curriculum “does not align with the quality benchmarks promoted by the International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education, as it does not address some key topics and includes moralizing language,” according to the UNESCO paper.

The International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education is the curriculum promoted by all UN agencies for stand-alone sex education, “Life Skills” programs, and other school programs.

For a detailed critique of Comprehensive Sexuality Education see the IORG Briefing Paper, Seven Reasons to Reject “Comprehensive Sexuality Education.”

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