The Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP), Meeting of Caribbean Youth Leaders – Sexual and Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS, concluded in Trinidad with Youth Leaders advocating for a review of the age of consent not being aligned with the age when most youth people are allowed to access sexual and reproductive health services.
This objective echoed similar sentiments by Senator the Hon. Robert T.L.V. Browne, Minister of Health, Wellness and the Environment, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Chair of the Executive of Board of PANCAP, who delivered the keynote address at the opening ceremony on Friday, April 21.
‘The disparity between the age of consent and access to sexual health services is a shame’ stated Senator Browne during his address, ‘as young people, we must challenge policymakers to review this since it has a direct impact on young people contracting HIV and AIDS’.
During a group activity to create a framework for Youth Advocacy on Sexual and Reproductive Health, youth leaders stated that they were concerned that most young people are allowed to engage in sexual activity before they can legally access sexual and reproductive health services.
According to Ms. Raymoniya Lawrence, a representative of The Caribbean Forum for Liberation and Acceptance of Genders and Sexualities (CariFLAGS), ‘it is unacceptable that a young man or woman can legally engage in sexual activity but not allowed to access critical sexual health services. This has a direct impact on preventing new HIV infections. We need our policymakers to join the conversation on this issue’.
Youth Leaders further agreed to explore opportunities to engage policymakers within their home countries and committed to utilising their advocacy platforms and organisations to furthering the agenda for a change to the age of consent and accessing sexual health services.
Participants also voiced concerns about the lack of comprehensive sexual education programmes in Caribbean schools. In creating a framework for action, youth leaders proposed that policymakers should join in a conversation on the creation of sexual education programmes for schools across the region as a tool to educate youth about sexual health issues and HIV and AIDS.
Mr. Dereck Springer, Director of PANCAP, in his closing remarks committed to seeking opportunities for youth leaders to engage policymakers within the region on the key objectives raised during the meeting. He commended the participants for contributing to the development of a framework which will outline the pivotal concerns of youth regarding sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS and pledged the support of PANCAP in helping the participants to take their concerns to the highest level.
Funded by the Global Fund and PAHO, the meeting forms part of a wider intervention programme created by PANCAP for Youth Advocacy. Youth advocacy training, facilitating youth leaders’ participation in high-level meetings to influence policy decisions affecting youth and the development of a regional youth advocacy network are other interventions slated for implementation with the overarching aim being the creation of a well-informed youth advocacy body that can advance the concerns of young people on sexual and reproductive health services and HIV/AIDS.
Ignorance of available information about sex is not responsible for the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
The way the information is dispensed is party to blame. It is being taught in classrooms in a totally amoral fashion as if there are no boundaries as long as a student does not get pregnant or contact a STD. Students are being taught how to have sex and avoid the consequences. At the beginning of one sexual instruction class the teacher told the students *If you think anything in this lesson might offend your parents just do not tell them.*
What young people need to know about sex and reproductive health can be taught by parents in their homes, and teachers, nurses, and guidance counselors in the schools, and social workers when they visit the schools. Pastors and youth leaders in the churches need to accept the responsibility of teaching God\’s moral code from the New Testament.
Continued…
Continuation:
The proposal you have on the table adds to an already existing obsession with sex. It has a tendency to give youth the idea that they have not been properly informed and the adult community has held back vital information from them. It implies that sex is not a normal part of life and must be given special treatment by bringing in the specialists even if it means teaching contrary to what they have been taught at home. in school, or at church.
In Ontario after years of trying to wrestle sex education out of the hands of parents the government is forcing a specialized sex curriculum on the schools created by a lesbian and a convicted sex criminal. It deals with homosexuality, transsexuality, oral sex, and anal sex. And of course it shows how important it is to be accepting of everybody especially those who are different. Along with this each school is required to have a Gay Strait Alliance which is a safe haven for homosexuals.
Sincerely, Rev. Donald Hill.
What they need to call for is comprehensive DRUG education, not impose scare tactics about drugs. For example dont demonize cocaine on one end then never ever educate children about the medical benefits or current uses of the coca plant like used as the active ingredient in the novacane that your dentist uses to numb your mouth as well as the endless number of medications it is used for. Same for marijuana. Same for the poppy plant which heroine is made from. Educate properly and stop teaching based on fear and misinformation. where sex is concerned, who is your target market? who will you be teaching about sex? what is the main lesson? wear a condom and get tested? Children these days know more about sex than adults, they putting on condom better than you or me. The age of consent isnt the problem, it is the parents and adults who need to teach their children properly to not be little hoes (boys n girls) and adults to know not to molest children.
I agree to the call. The world is changing and we have to adapt as well. In this day and age people are still afraid to say the words SEX and HIV. Why are we still so hush-hush about sex and the topics surrounding sexual health? There are a number of sexual health issues that we in this region need to address and we have to use full comprehensive sex education as a tool to help!