Mil gracias to Las Culturas Blog for pointing out an article showing the state of the lack of sexual education in Latin America.

An informal survey by IPS correspondents in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela shows that sex education is patchy or nonexistent in the region, with the exception of Cuba.

The article points to legal guidelines which call for sexual education programs in Latin American countries as a way to help prevent childhood sexual abuse, teen pregnancy, and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. But most of the programs are not being run, sometimes because of resistance from the church.

The president of the Mexican bishops’ conference, José Guadalupe Martín said:

It is a misguided concept that the state can decide what should or should not be done in the field of sex education, as if the state had begot those children.

The state may not have begot those children but lack of sexual education is causing many young teens to beget their own children. According to Ivonne Ponce, a health education teacher at the Pablo Vila junior secondary school in a working class neighbourhood in Caracas, Venezuela:

I’ve seen for myself that kids reach the age of 14 or 15 with almost no knowledge whatsoever about these issues, and that helps explain the high rate of teenage pregnancy.

And that’s not even getting into the issue of STD’s.

Around the world, almost one-quarter of the people infected with HIV/AIDS are under 25 years of age, while young people between 15 and 25 account for one-half of all new infections today.

On the same tip, if you think abstinence only sex-ed curriculums are a good idea (or not) you’ll get a big kick out of this Spanish language video

Article Via / Las Culturas
Video Via / Bitch Ph.D.