by: 
Abbey824
Abbey824Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 11:28:00 AM EDT
Facebook
Recently, UNESCO and UNFPA issued new voluntary sex ed guidelines that advocate for educating children and young people throughout thier lives in age-appropriate lessons about thier body, sexuality and sexual health. The UN guidelines for educators, the International Guidelines on Sexuality Education:
They are based on dozens of studies worldwide and are designed to combat the ever-rising rates of HIV and STIs around the world. They follow in the pattern of the International Planned Parenthood Federation's Charter on Sexual and Reprodutive Rights in maintaining that children and young people have an ever evolving capacity to be our own decisionmakers and deserve the information that can help us in developing healthy decisionmaking skills. It is extremely refreshing to me to see UN agencies come out strongly in support for such a realistic approach to giving people the tools they need and deserve.are organized around six key concepts: relationships; values, attitudes and skills; culture, society and law; human development; sexual behaviour; and sexual and reproductive health.
Naturally, though, the media and the right is seeing this as extremely radical and controversial. A sampling of headlines on the issue:
"The UN's Schocking Sexuality Guidelines" - The American Thinker
"Five year-old should be taught about sex so they can 'ask questions or report abuse' says Unesco" - Telegraph UK
"UNESCO Sex-ed program to teach masturbation, aphrodisiacs to kids" - All Headline News
"Teaching sex to 5 year olds: UN Report Advocates teaching Masturbation to Five year olds" FOXNews
And my favorite? "UNESCO, UNFPA Report calls for explicit sex ed for all the world's children over five" - Lifesitenews.com
Because clearly, teaching children and young people age appropriate information about thier bodies and how to decide what is safe and healthy and right for them, that will aid them in living healthy lives is off the wall radical. Well, I mean what can you expect from a bunch of European Socialist Radicals like the United Nations?
But seriously, the new guidelines a great step towards ensuring that all people get the tools we need to live healthy lives, and I commend UNFPA and UNESCO for taking a step that should not be controversial at all.
Get email updates and action alerts:
by Anatic09
And i love this little linguistic tic that the right has:
"Teaching Masturbation" as opposed to "Teaching about Masturbation"
"Teaching homosexuality" as opposed to "Teaching about homosexuality," or as most of us would prefer, "Teaching about diversity."
Very interesting the way they write that so that if a person only read the headline, they might conclude that means teaching five year olds how to masturbate, as opposed to what masturbation is....
Nice article, clearly written and well researched!