Living in a patriarchal world with deep-rooted gender inequalities, girls and young women in the Eastern and Southern Africa Region face barriers to enjoying their sexual and reproductive health and rights, accessing quality healthcare, and remain vulnerable to HIV, sexually transmitted infections, unplanned and unsafe pregnancies. In a world where sex is weaponised, against girls, women, and gender-diverse people while on the other society sexualizes, objectifies and commodifies girls; girls and young women are having sex or forced and coerced to have sex BUT are often afraid or unable to talk about it, seek information or access tools to protect themselves and their partners. Also, because of social stigma, they are unlikely to report when they have been sexually assaulted. Currently, the reporting rate for sexual violence is 1:20 and prosecution rates are even lower.
Overcoming these challenges and protecting the human rights and dignity of girls and young women requires dynamic and comprehensive approaches to providing access to health care. Also, governments and actors have to be mindful of how healthcare interfaces with economic, social, and political local, regional and global interventions.
CSE is a powerful tool to address social and behavioural attitudes that sustain gender inequality, a pathway to accurate and scientific information on sexual and reproductive health and rights and an affirming tool for girls and young women who often have to grapple with navigating sexuality and growth in a patriarchal world. There are also misconceptions that providing CSE to girls and young women encourages them to have sex. Advocating for abstinence is not the solution, and neither is demonising sex. Dichotomies only perpetuate simplistic narratives. Providing access to CSE creates legitimate platforms for accessing information, skills and confidence needed by girls and young women to advocate for, protect and enjoy their sexual reproductive health and rights. It is empowering. It promotes gender equality, safe sexual choices and norms.
Situating and contextualizing the case for Comprehensive Sexuality Education in accordance with the lived realities of girls and young women
Among these interventions requires that they have access to in and out-of-school reliable, up to date, affirming, inclusive, relevant, pleasure-centred, and context-specific comprehensive sexuality education (CSE). CSE is a curriculum-based process of teaching and learning about the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social aspects of sexuality.
Sexuality
Puberty is an important time for adolescents’ sexual development. During this time, a lot of them explore and learn things about themselves. Sexuality includes feelings and attraction on all different levels — not just who you have sex with. While this is a common part of teenage life, it can also be a confusing time for young people. The lack of diverse and affirming representations of gender diversity, expressions, and sexual orientations can leave young people feeling confused, isolated, and anxious. Affirming CSE offers insights and perspectives that can help young people navigate their sexuality, find their feet and make sense of what they’re feeling and/or going through.
Bodily Autonomy and Sexual Reproductive Health Rights
Sexual reproductive health and rights-based CSE teaches girls and young women about their human rights, consent, and bodily autonomy. It lays the foundation for accessing information and having the language and confidence they need to live healthy and fulfilled lives. Educating them about bodily autonomy gives them the power to say yes and teaches them they can also say no. We need to teach them they may choose what they do with their bodies, who have access to them, whether they want to have children and how many children they have. Likewise, CSE should centre pleasure. Sex should be pleasurable, and sexuality should be a source of pleasure. Centring pleasure when we learn about and have sex teaches girls and young women that their pleasure is important.
Sexual And Reproductive Health
CSE reduces the likelihood of them engaging in sexual risk-taking behaviour. We need girls and women to share experienced-based insights about the issues that affect them if we are to create sustainable strategies and solutions that’ll improve healthcare in their favour. By providing them with information and resources to learn about and understand sexual and reproductive health, they can actively engage with stakeholders at every level to ensure that there are strategies and interventions in place to protect them. Likewise, CSE gives them access to the information that they need to make informed choices about how to take care of themselves and their sexual partners.
HIV and Sexually Transmitted Illnesses
girls and women in Eastern and Southern Africa are among key populations who are particularly vulnerable to being affected by and infected with HIV/AIDS. According to the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, six out of seven new HIV infections are among girls and women aged between 15 and 19 years in Sub-Saharan Africa and approximately 4200 girls and women became infected with HIV every week in 2020. This is a result of poverty; gender inequality; the lack of economic security; gender-based violence; the lack of access to free and quality healthcare; infringements on their human rights; the lack of access to sexual justice, CSE, information; quality education; and the lack of gender-sensitive HIV interventions, resourcing and financing. CSE provides information about HIV prevention, testing, treatment, and care. Providing CSE will assist achieve universal healthcare reach zero new HIV infections, zero AIDS-related deaths and zero discrimination by 2030.
Choices
At some point, everyone who is sexually active will have to make decisions that’ll affect their sexual health. Without the right information that details different choices and ways of protecting themselves, they may be at risk. There are multiple methods of contraceptives, as well as STI and HIV prevention and treatment options. Governments should ensure that they are accessible and girls and women need to know which choices are available to them. Choices are empowering.
As feminists, we need to continue to amplify the realities of how girls and women navigate their daily lives in a patriarchal world. In a world where 1 in 3 girls and women will experience gender-based violence and where gender-based violence has become a parallel pandemic, we call for governments to fulfil their obligations and play their role in protecting the human rights of girls and young women. Governments’ commitments should include a guarantee to girls and young women’s access to their sexual and reproductive health and rights with practical solutions such as enabling access to CSE. As governments across Eastern and Southern Africa negotiate the renewal of the ESA ministerial commitment on Adolescent and Youth Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights, we call for full support and implementation of CSE.
As governments finalize the commitment, there is a need for a strong focus and equal prominence on CSE and autonomous adolescent access to sexual reproductive health services. As relates to the need of girls and young women, there is a need to focus on amending restrictive laws and policies that hinder autonomous adolescent access to sexual reproductive health education, knowledge, information, and services in and out of school. Referencing the interface between health systems and other spheres of girls and young women’s lives, governments should strongly invest in quality education, especially for girls and young women, recognizing schools as sites for enabling access to health information and services and neutral platforms for referral pathways to sexual reproductive health and rights.