Sex education for healty

 

Sex education for healty

On the contrary, abstinence-only sexual health education programs that withhold critical information on sexual health, promote inaccurate information, and often ignore or stigmatize healthy adolescent sexual behaviors, and particularly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth, can be outright harmful to young people. Evaluations of these programs have consistently shown that they are not effective. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has stated:

The majority of young people Human Rights Watch spoke with expressed a lack of understanding of HPV and the HPV vaccine. Although many reported having heard of HPV or seen commercials for the vaccine on television, the majority did not understand the role HPV plays in causing cancer and how the vaccine functions as a cancer prevention tool. Of the 45 young people Human Rights Watch interviewed, only 5 recalled having learned about HPV at all in school, with most reporting that it was covered only briefly when learning about STIs in health classes. Only three interviewees reported learning about the HPV vaccine in school.

*High-risk substance use is any use by adolescents of substances with a high risk of adverse outcomes (i.e., injury, criminal justice involvement, school dropout, loss of life). This includes misuse of prescription drugs, use of illicit drugs (i.e., cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, inhalants, hallucinogens, or ecstasy), and use of injection drugs (i.e., drugs that have a high risk of infection of blood-borne diseases such as HIV and hepatitis).

Crystal N., 25, completed the HPV vaccine, starting the vaccine series at age 14. She described how little information she was provided with at the time: “They basically said, ‘here’s your vaccine’ and stuck it in my arm. It’s not something that you generally hear about,” she said. “No one ever really talks about HPV.” Hannah S., 23, said that she learned very little about HPV until she went to her first gynecologist appointment in college. When she started the vaccine series as an adolescent, she had no clue what it was for. She recalled how she was told, “It’s just for women’s health stuff.” Hannah knew she had received an initial dose of the vaccine but she wasn’t sure if she had finished it, describing this as a barrier to protecting herself. With more information on the vaccine, Hannah could have advocated for herself, ensuring she completed the series and feeling confident that she had taken an important step towards lowering her risk of cancer in the future.

A lack of education around HPV also leads to misinformation about the virus and limits the ability of young people to educate their peers on this common and preventable infection. Although she received the vaccine, Michelle S., 25, admitted that even as a grown woman in her mid-twenties, she did not know much about HPV or the vaccine. She described confusion around how HPV is transmitted among her peers, with one friend believing that only men can catch the virus from women. Jasmine D. said that although she didn’t learn anything about HPV in middle or high school, she felt she had learned more through her nursing classes and guest speakers who have lectured on sexual health. She now has a basic understanding of HPV but admitted that she would like to learn more about HPV and the vaccine so she can help educate other people, including her peers.

Abstinence-only education provided Hazel T., 20, with little useful information on her sexual health. Without access to accurate information at school or at home, she turned to the internet for information. She realizes now that, without even a basic foundation for understanding her sexual health, the internet was not a safe and reliable source of information: “There’s no possible way to glean enough information from the internet, with no base to know what you need to be looking for, to really understand what is safe and what is not safe.” The majority of young people Human Rights Watch spoke with reported turning to the internet or to their friends for this information, often leading to misinformation around sex and sexual health. Chloe L. said where she turned to for information on her sexual health was “100 percent the internet.” Ashley W. said that she turned to the internet for information at a time when she “wanted a trusted source of information for myself.” According to Abba M., 21, the vast majority of youth in Alabama are “getting their information about sex from the back of the bus, the internet, from movies.”

The right to health also obliges states to share information that promotes healthy outcomes. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has determined that state obligations include “fostering recognition of factors favouring positive health results, e.g. research and provision of information” and “ensuring that the State meets its obligations in the dissemination of appropriate information relating to healthy lifestyles and nutrition, harmful traditional practices and the availability of services.” The committee also determined that in deliberately withholding or misrepresenting information that is vital for protecting health, states violate their obligation to respect the right to health. By not actively promoting science-based information on HPV and the HPV vaccine to parents and adolescents, Alabama is failing to provide access to information that could prevent adverse health outcomes, and possibly death, for individuals living in the state.

A: A thorough engagement process, involving a public call for evidence and discussions with over 90 organisations, as well as the public consultation on the draft regulations and guidance, has informed the key decisions on these subjects. The consultation received over 11,000 responses from teachers, schools, expert organisations, young people and parents – these responses have helped finalise the statutory guidance.

All interviewees were informed of the purpose of the interview, its voluntary nature, and the ways in which the information would be collected and used. Interviewers assured participants that they could end the interview at any time or decline to answer questions without negative consequences. All interviewees provided oral informed consent to participate in an interview. Human Rights Watch has used pseudonyms in this report when interviewees requested anonymity or it was necessary to protect confidentiality. Human Rights Watch did not provide anyone with compensation for participating in interviews. For some group interviews, light refreshments, such as water and snacks, were served.