Focus

Islamic sex education should be taught at home starting at an early age.


Before giving education about anatomy and physiology, the belief in the Creator should be well established.


Minister for Human Resource Development, Arjun Singh’s efforts to make sex education compulsory in schools is leading to mass protests through out the country. In Mumbai, 22 organisations under the aegis of Ashleelta Virodhi Manch (Anti-Obscenity Campaign) are opposing the move.


Based on the premise that sex education will lead more children to experiment with sex instead of staying off it, the Ashleelta Virodhi Manch will launch a countrywide agitation to have it scrapped.


In the statement to the press Ashleelta Virodhi Manch said that, “Uncontrolled sexual anarchy is the reason for AIDS. It is a Western illness. Why should our children be taught about sex?” The NCERT’s Adolescence Education Programme (AEP) for CBSE schools and its customised version developed by the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) have provoked considerable uproar.


The syllabus for the AEP, an adjunct of UNICEF’s anti-HIV campaign, is being seen by many as too explicit and even openly suggestive, and unfit for India’s conservative ethos. The Ashleelta Virodhi Manch has even alleged that the programme is an attempt to promote sex tourism through the back door. What has rubbed detractors the wrong way are some of the contents spread over several teaching modules. These include teaching students that it’s a myth that homosexuality is abnormal and that it is only a matter of sexual preference, besides activity sessions to learn about sexual molestation and its prevention.


Questions like “When did you first have wet dreams? Did that change your approach to girls?” discussion themes like “Men can engage in sex with little children”, suggestions like the one implying sexual activity that does not involve actual intercourse is safe, have invited protests. Even the role plays like teachers and students acting out the father and son dialogue on sexual FAQs, have run into rough weather. “Everyone knows the spread of AIDS has to do with cultural decadence stemming from sexual anarchy. So how can this programme, clearly capable of institutionalizing promiscuity, help?” asked Aslam Gazi of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) who has decided to launch a nationwide agitation against AEP.


One of the basic questions is, “Do children need sex education?” Do you teach a baby duck how to swim or just put it in the water and let it swim? After all, for thousands of years, men and women have been having sex without any formal education. In many traditional civilizations, sex education starts after marriage and with trial and error.


Dangerously enough, there is no consensus in India over introducing sex and reproductive health education in the school and college syllabus. Meanwhile, the reality is that a large population of about 300 million young people is in the age group 12-24, and studies are showing their growing preference for pre-marital sex. In a survey in 2002 by The Week magazine, of unmarried young Indians, 69 per cent of men admitted to pre-marital sex compared to 38 per cent of women. In the 16-19 group, forty-five per cent had pre-marital sex, while 27 per cent were 15 years or under and 28 per cent were 20 years or older. No one can say that the problem does not exist. But the issue of sex education needs to be handled with utmost care.


The major controversy is the curriculum prescribed by the official agencies, which is very vague and unnecessarily explicit. It does not cover morality associated with sex, sexual dysfunctions and deviations and the importance of legitimate sex only through the institution of marriage.


A father should teach his son and a mother should teach her daughter. In the absence of a willing parent, the next best choice should be a Muslim male teacher (preferably a physician) for boys and a Muslim female teacher (preferably a physician) for a girl at the school.


Even for Muslim parents of today, sex education is still a volatile subject. They feel uncomfortable in discussing sex education with their children, and hence leave the issue to be discussed by secular or non-Muslim teachers (of even the opposite sex), by their peers of either sex, and by the media and television. An average child is exposed to 9000 sexual scenes per year. The Quran has placed much emphasis on acquiring knowledge, and in the days of Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh), Muslim men and women were never too shy to ask him questions including those related to private affairs such as sexual life. Islam recognises the power of sexual need, but the subject is discussed in the Quran in a serious manner, with regard to marital and family life. Parents should familiarise themselves with this body of knowledge.


Islamic sex education should be taught at home starting at an early age. Before giving education about anatomy and physiology, the belief in the Creator should be well established. As Dostoevsky put it, “Without God, everything is possible,” meaning that the lack of belief or awareness of God gives an OK for wrongdoing.


A father should teach his son and a mother should teach her daughter. In the absence of a willing parent, the next best choice should be a Muslim male teacher (preferably a physician) for boys and a Muslim female teacher (preferably a physician) for a girl at the school.


The curriculum should be tailored according to age of the child and classes be held separately. Only pertinent answers to a question should be given. But the current controversy regarding sex education in schools is because those who have designed it are not transparent and perhaps incompetent. The entire issue needs to be debated and parents’ active involvement is necessary. First parents need to be coached and trained. According to Imam Al-Ghazali, “knowledge exists potentially in the human soul like the seed in the soil; by learning, the potential becomes actual.” The child, Al-Ghazali also wrote, “is a trust (placed by God) in the hands of his parents, and his innocent heart is a precious element capable of taking impressions”.


If the parents, and later the teachers, brought him up in righteousness he would live happily in this world and the next and they would be rewarded by God for their good deed. If they neglected the child’s upbringing and education, he would lead a life of unhappiness in both worlds and they would bear the burden of the sin of neglect.