Children need JFJ's sex-ed programme

Maurice Tomlinson, Guest Columnist

While she was executive director of Jamaicans for Justice, Dr Carolyn Gomes - a paediatrician by training - helped to introduce a comprehensive sexual education manual into some of the island's children's homes.

This manual addressed things such as anal and oral sex and was developed in light of clear evidence that the children were engaging in these types of sexual activity while being largely ignorant of how to protect themselves from HIV and other STIs.

I had the privilege of caring for a child who had spent, some time in a children's home and I was informed, quite matter-of-factly, that the kids were indeed having full-out sex well before puberty. This accords with studies I read as a former board member of Jamaica AIDS Support for Life. These showed that the average age of first full sexual activity in Jamaica is nine years old!

VULNERABLE TO HIV

The fact is that many young girls are engaging in anal and oral sex as a form of birth control, and as a way of maintaining their virginity. However, the girls do not insist that their male partners use condoms as they feel that only gay men can contract HIV. It is, therefore, no coincidence that young girls are bearing the brunt of the HIV epidemic among the heterosexual population, a fact that the minister of youth has previously acknowledged.

However, when the minister heard about the JFJ manual, she ordered the accompanying course immediately suspended and demanded a full report.

The group Hear the Children's Cry has been trumpeting this state of affairs as a victory for children's rights. However, it is also useful to recall that the group's head, Betty-Anne Blaine, has tried unsuccessfully to win a seat in Parliament and has recently declared on national television that although she has been in the NGO "business" for some time, she has consistently failed to secure the type of funding that JFJ and others have managed to attract. Ms Blaine's political and economic agenda with regard to this issue should be plain to see.

Nevertheless, JFJ, which initially defended the course, has since declared that it made an error in supporting the manual.

A PERSONAL VENDETTA?

I am not surprised at this reversal. This is because the new head of JFJ is the same person who was general manager of TVJ when the station refused to air the paid 'Unconditional Love' ad that called for tolerance towards LGBT citizens. She effectively claimed that the station had to respect the wishes of the majority of Jamaicans, even if this meant violating the right to free speech of a vulnerable minority. I strongly suspect that Dr Gomes' resignation from the board of JFJ was orchestrated by a similar desire to appease the masses, at the expense of another vulnerable group, this time, the nation's children.

I have a son. I may not approve of all his decisions in life, BUT I certainly would want him to be educated about the consequences of his actions and how to protect himself. We do our children a disservice when we do not give them facts and allow ignorance and prejudice to be the controlling factor.

Despite the minister of health's recent call for strong and decisive actions against religious and cultural prejudice in order to fight the raging HIV epidemic, political cowardice is clearly visible. And at least for now, the fundamentalists seem to be winning.

Maurice Tomlinson is an attorney-at-law and gay-rights activist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.