A sex education program being sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Zambia has been rejected by top government officials.
UNFPA on its website said the comprehensive sexual education project includes scientifically accurate information about human development, anatomy and reproductive health.
It added that the project also covers information about contraception, childbirth and sexually transmitted infections.
But Zambia’s minister for religious affairs Godfridah Sumaili is reported by local media as saying the program promotes gender identities, sexual orientation and reproductive health rights alien to Zambia.
“Zambia is a Christian nation anchored on Christian values, so we have to protect our Christian heritage,” she is quoted as saying.
Many Christian groups have also raised objections to the project but there other pressure groups that support the project.
Last year citizens and groups in Ghana also reacted strongly to similar changes to education curriculum for students.
The country’s education ministry reacted saying the said comprehensive sex education curriculum was yet to be approved.
South Africans also in 2019 fumed over a leaked version of the new 2020 life orientation curriculum.
The curriculum was an updated sex education content expected to cover lessons on private parts, masturbation and explicit direction on using female condoms.
Students from Grade 4 and up are said to be targeted in this leaked curriculum.
Teachers then served notice of possibly boycotting the new school curriculum.
They were unhappy with content of the curriculum that requires them to teach pupils in Grade 7 about masturbation and to describe to Grade 8 pupils what happens “during vaginal, oral and anal sex”.
Known as the “Our right, Our lives, Our Future (O³), the sex education subject is supported by the governments of Sweden and Ireland.
It is to be implemented in Ghana, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Source: Africafeeds.com
