Condoms can't be trusted and boys don't cry in Catholic Paraguay's first sex ed program

Source: Associated Press

Condoms can’t be trusted and boys don’t cry in Catholic Paraguay’s first sex ed program

By ISABEL DEBRE
Updated 3:52 AM EDT, September 3, 2024

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In Catholic Paraguay, which has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in South America, many young mothers explained their teen pregnancies to The Associated Press as the result of growing up in a country where parents avoid the birds and the bees talk at all costs and national sex education is indistinguishable from a hygiene lesson.

“I didn’t decide to become a mother,” Zalazar said. “I didn’t have a chance to choose because I didn’t have the knowledge.”

Over the years that Zalazar, now 39, has gone from sexual ignorance and shame to raising her 23-year-old son and advocating for children’s rights, Paraguay’s lack of sex education has remained unchanged — until now. For the first time, the Ministry of Education has endorsed a national sex ed curriculum. But in a surprising twist, it’s the sexual health educators and feminists who are panicked. Conservative lobbyists are thrilled.

The curriculum, a copy of which was obtained by the AP, promotes abstinence, explains sex as “God’s invention for married people,” warns about the inefficacy of condoms and says nothing of sexual orientation or identity.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/paraguay-sexed-lgbtq-curriculum-teen-pregnancy-evangelical-eu-culture-wars-ec1ea559417e2cd7b6ee852550ee9efd