An urgent call by Non-governmental Organisations for human sexuality to be included in the school curriculum to reduce the alarming rate of teen pregnancies and be given top priority has gone out to the Government last Friday.Speaking at Advocates for Safe Parenthood Improving Reproductive Equity (Aspire) breakfast meeting to honour the commemoration of International Women's Day held on March 8, at the Crowne Plaza hotel, first vice-president of National Parent Teachers' Association (NPTA) Maureen Taylor-Ryan, made a fervent plea for Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) to be a "stand alone" subject to be taught from nursery to secondary schools in Trinidad and Tobago."I know there are many teachers who have problems with and do not want to address the sexual/biological component of HFLE," Taylor-Ryan said.She said that she was sure there were special interest groups willing to assist Aspire in the HFLE initiative.She revealed that STIs (sexually transmitted infections), relationships and the pervading fear of violence were major concerns for our youth.
"We cannot close our eyes to the fact and say that young people are not sexually active," Taylor-Ryan added."We cannot say there is no violence in schools. With violence come fear, so we must support the government in implementing the HFLE programme." she said.While T & T was ranked third in the Commonwealth in gender equity, in the Royal Commonwealth Society and Plan UK for Commonwealth 2011 Gender Equality Report, teenage pregnancies, STIs, violence, exploitation, health care and discrimination were major challenges to be addressed at Aspires's themed Education, Training Advocacy Pathway to Achieving Excellence seminar.
Family Planning Association of Trinidad and Tobago president, Dr Jacqueline Sharpe, disclosed a disconcerting trend that the level of pregnancies among under 16 adolescents, 64 per 1,000 live births did not change for 25 years."There is still an enormous amount of work to do in establishing comprehensive sexually education," Sharpe said.There was also a problem of sexual molestation of adolescent girls by their adolescent male peers she added. "There's a developing attitude among young men that girls can just be made to do what the boys want them to do."Sharpe said that the International Planned Parenthood Federation of America had developed a curriculum that that dealt with gender, HIV, sexuality and rights advocacy and was available to NGOs, Aspire, FPA and Unicef for adoption.