ADVOCATES CALL FOR ADOLESCENT RH EDUCATION
PATRICIA DENISE CHIU, GMA News August 30, 2012 5:52pm
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news
It's not always easy to answer a teen's questions about his or her body.
And when they do not know who to go to for answers — to questions on a range of topics, from the color of their ejaculate to the irregularity of their menstrual periods — adolescent reproductive health education becomes necessary, advocates said Wednesday.
“Questions like this you have to answer in a sex-positive way," Dr. Silvia Claudio, Director of the UP Women’s Studies Center, told reporters after a roundtable discussion with some 30 advocates and experts in Makati City. “Non-judgemental scientific information about sexuality in its broadest scope,” she added.
“If you look at reality, you can see that this [sex-negative] approach is not working," Claudio said, pointing to rape, hazing and bullying as possible consequences of a “lack of resonance in young people” of current methods of adolescent RH education.
“[Adolescents] have many different concerns, but there are common interests,” Claudio said. In a country where one in every 10 teenagers aged 15-19 will have given birth to their first child, the best thing to do is to arm them with knowledge, she added.
With the previous administration’s push for Natural Family Planning (NFP), live births by teenage mothers swelled to 195,662 in 2009 — a 55.25 percent increase from 126,025 in 2000, according to data from the NSO.
The Arroyo administration championed NFP and funneled some P50 million to the Catholic group Couples for Christ “for education and counseling in NFP.” Funds which have been misused, said Likhaan executive director Dr. Junice Melgar.
“We go a hold of the materials [used by Couples for Christ] that said ‘contraceptives are abortifacients,’” said Melgar. She also suggested that the funds may have been used by the religious organization to fund their assemblies.
“Despite all the money poured into it, NFP jumped all of 0.3 percent,” she said.
Attorney Elizabeth Aguiling-Pangalangan of the UP Institute of Human Rights said the government could be held accountable for the lack of an RH law, as it can be seen in a way as favoring one religious group over others.
“Human rights are not subject to political majority. It’s not right for government to pass laws that manifest the teachings of one church. Laws should be secular,” she explained, slamming the Catholic Church’s claim that because 85 percent of Filipinos are Catholic, the majority should be respected.
“For as long as there is one parent who wants their child to receive sex education, schools should provide this,” she added. — BM, GMA News
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MINA TENORIO
mina@likhaan.org
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news
It's not always easy to answer a teen's questions about his or her body.
And when they do not know who to go to for answers — to questions on a range of topics, from the color of their ejaculate to the irregularity of their menstrual periods — adolescent reproductive health education becomes necessary, advocates said Wednesday.
“Questions like this you have to answer in a sex-positive way," Dr. Silvia Claudio, Director of the UP Women’s Studies Center, told reporters after a roundtable discussion with some 30 advocates and experts in Makati City. “Non-judgemental scientific information about sexuality in its broadest scope,” she added.
“If you look at reality, you can see that this [sex-negative] approach is not working," Claudio said, pointing to rape, hazing and bullying as possible consequences of a “lack of resonance in young people” of current methods of adolescent RH education.
“[Adolescents] have many different concerns, but there are common interests,” Claudio said. In a country where one in every 10 teenagers aged 15-19 will have given birth to their first child, the best thing to do is to arm them with knowledge, she added.
With the previous administration’s push for Natural Family Planning (NFP), live births by teenage mothers swelled to 195,662 in 2009 — a 55.25 percent increase from 126,025 in 2000, according to data from the NSO.
The Arroyo administration championed NFP and funneled some P50 million to the Catholic group Couples for Christ “for education and counseling in NFP.” Funds which have been misused, said Likhaan executive director Dr. Junice Melgar.
“We go a hold of the materials [used by Couples for Christ] that said ‘contraceptives are abortifacients,’” said Melgar. She also suggested that the funds may have been used by the religious organization to fund their assemblies.
“Despite all the money poured into it, NFP jumped all of 0.3 percent,” she said.
Attorney Elizabeth Aguiling-Pangalangan of the UP Institute of Human Rights said the government could be held accountable for the lack of an RH law, as it can be seen in a way as favoring one religious group over others.
“Human rights are not subject to political majority. It’s not right for government to pass laws that manifest the teachings of one church. Laws should be secular,” she explained, slamming the Catholic Church’s claim that because 85 percent of Filipinos are Catholic, the majority should be respected.
“For as long as there is one parent who wants their child to receive sex education, schools should provide this,” she added. — BM, GMA News
--
MINA TENORIO
mina@likhaan.org
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