Components of Comprehensive Sexuality Education

Adolescence brings many changes to the body, the mind and the feelings. It also brings many questions. Why is my body changing like this? What should a friendship be like? What do I do if someone behaves towards me in a way I do not want? Comprehensive sexuality education is the education that answers questions like these correctly, scientifically and in a way that suits a young person's age.

This education gives plenty of information about sexual and reproductive health during adolescence and sheds light on the many sides of sexual life. It is not only about how the body is built. Equality, rights, respect, safety and healthy relationships are part of it too. It is called comprehensive because it covers all of these sides together, not just one.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) has been running programmes on comprehensive sexuality education since 2005. The IPPF has set out seven important components of this education. Think of them as seven branches growing from one centre, and that centre is comprehensive sexuality education itself.

Gender is an important component of comprehensive sexuality education. It includes:

• the characteristics of men and women
• equality and equity between men and women
• reproductive rights
• the empowerment of women

Social customs have given men and women separate roles. In some places people still believe that a woman must do the housework because she is a woman, and a man must go out and earn because he is a man. For example, in some homes a daughter is made to leave school to help with household work while her brother carries on studying. Beliefs like these create inequality between women and men.

Feudal thinking and a male-dominated (patriarchal) social structure still exist in our society, and the gender discrimination and inequality they cause can harm the reproductive health of adolescent boys and girls. Social and economic inequality can also create discrimination between genders. The Constitution of Nepal states that no one shall be discriminated against on the basis of social or economic status, caste or sex. Discrimination in any form is therefore a punishable act.

A person cannot be fully healthy unless their sexual and reproductive health is healthy too. Even if the rest of the body is well, a problem in this area means the person is not completely healthy. Sexual and reproductive health includes:

• preventing sexually transmitted infections
• voluntary pregnancy, meaning a pregnancy that is chosen, not forced
• using temporary family planning methods during sexual intercourse
• safe abortion
• various sexual health problems

Comprehensive sexuality education gives the knowledge and information needed about all of these. A young person with correct information can protect their own health and is not misled by rumours. That is why sexual and reproductive health is an important component of this education.

A citizen's sexual rights include:

• protection of sexual health
• sexual contact only when both people understand and agree
• knowledge about a culture that keeps changing
• access to reproductive rights
• participation and practice
• a person's own right to accept or refuse a proposal of sex

Sexual behaviour against another person's wishes must never happen. Teasing, touching, staring, saying things with a sexual meaning and doing any sexual act without the other person's agreement are all examples of it. This component matters because it teaches that every citizen's sexual rights must be respected.

Pleasure, or enjoyment, is another important component. Here pleasure does not mean only the physical pleasure that comes from bodily contact. It also means a happy emotional relationship between two people. Sexuality is a part of every person's life, and the emotional bond in it matters just as much as the physical side.

People are not all the same. They differ in identity, belief and culture. Comprehensive sexuality education accepts sexual diversity.

In our society, a sexual relationship between a man and a woman is still often the only one accepted as natural. But marriage between people of the same sex has now also begun. Comprehensive sexuality education accepts this diversity and stresses developing a positive attitude towards it. Diversity includes:

• religious beliefs about sexuality
• the views of different ethnic communities
• the rights of sexual minorities

Many kinds of violence can happen to women and to men. They can be grouped as follows.

• Types of violence: physical, psychological, sexual, gender-based, social and economic
• By where and to whom it happens: domestic violence, sexual violence, violence against workers, and others
• Forms violence takes: beating, burning, harassing, sexual assault, abusing someone after drinking alcohol, throwing someone out of the home, and others

No woman must be pushed into a sexual act through pressure, stress or violent behaviour. Doing so is a punishable offence. Sometimes women face violence simply because they are women, and this is completely wrong. No one must be treated violently in any way, and everyone must understand that violence is a punishable act.

Comprehensive sexuality education covers ways to avoid violence, rescuing people who suffer it, and helping them settle back into society, which is called rehabilitation. If women are given their rights to education, health, employment and social security, violence against women can be reduced. That is why violence is an important component of this education.

Relationship is the seventh and last component. Nobody lives alone. Each of us is tied to family, friends and society through many kinds of relationships. Relationships take different forms:

A relationship should always be one in which each person respects the other, loves the other and values the other's feelings. A relationship must not be pushed forward by force, and it must not be ended by force either. Comprehensive sexuality education teaches how the relationship between husband and wife, between two people in love and between friends can be kept healthy. That is why it is an important component.

The IPPF is not the only body to set out these components. UNESCO, the United Nations organisation for education, has done so too. In 2018 UNESCO presented the components of comprehensive sexuality education as follows:

• Relationships
• Values, rights, culture and sexuality
• Understanding gender
• Violence and staying safe
• Skills for health and well-being
• The human body and development
• Sexuality and sexual behaviour
• Sexual and reproductive health

Comparing the two lists, relationships, gender, violence and sexual and reproductive health appear in both. UNESCO's list has eight components, and it gives the human body and development, and skills for health and well-being, places of their own. The IPPF list has seven.