Paraguay, which has the second highest rate of teenage pregnancy in South America, is about to approve its first national sex education curriculum.
But activists, students and parents have expressed concern about the new guidelines, which warn that condoms cannot be trusted, masturbation leads to loneliness and make no mention of LGBTQ+ people.
Health workers have long argued that comprehensive sex education was urgently needed in a country where rates of child pregnancy remain stubbornly high – and abortion is banned even in cases of rape.
Government figures show that last year, 10,697 adolescents aged 15–19, and 405 girls aged 10–14 gave birth in the country, which has a population of just 6.9 million. In South America, the country’s teenage birth rate is only surpassed by Venezuela.
Equally alarming are the figures on sexual abuse, with 4,084 girls and adolescents falling victim in 2023.
Paraguay forbids terminations unless a risk to the mother’s health can be proved, and the country has seen a string of grim cases in which rape victims as young as 10 have been forced to carry pregnancies to term. In 2018, a 14-year-old girl died during an emergency caesarean section, after she was raped by a 37-year-old man.
The long-awaited sex education curriculum was seen as a way to help tackle the crisis when it was announced by the government in June 2023.
More than a year later, critics argue that project, which will be rolled out nationally next year, is driven not by scientific evidence but religious fundamentalism.
The new curriculum says only refer to sex between “a man and a woman” and warn that “we know condoms are not an adequate protection” and that “masturbation leads to problems of frustration and isolation”. Students are also to be taught that “sexual relations are not for children or teenagers, nor for boyfriends or girlfriends; they are for adults committed to each other for life”.
The National Union of Student Centres has called for a curriculum which is “not to be influenced by any ideological agenda or religious bias”.
Simón Cazal, founder of the LGBTQ+ rights NGO SomosGay, said the government’s plan was “charged with Christian precepts and is very repressive. It disregards human rights and ignores science,” he said, adding that it “makes no mention whatsoever of LGBTQ+ people”.
“We have terrible phenomena of sexual violence against girls and adolescents … and one of the highest rate of teenage pregnancies on the continent – and the only response the government is proposing is to promote abstinence,” said Cazal, adding that only conservative organisations were invited to discuss the new program.
One of the programme’s most prominent supporters is Miguel Ortigoza, an evangelical pastor from Capitol Ministries, a Washington-based non-profit that held Bible studies sessions in the White House during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Ortigoza told the Associated Press that Paraguay, which is predominantly Catholic, “has a very strong Judeo-Christian culture that still prevails, and there’s fierce resistance to anything that goes against our principles”.
Both Catholic and evangelical churches have expressed support for the new curriculum.
“We don’t understand why churches should impose any type of education in Paraguay,” said Adriana Closs, president of Families for Holistic Education, one of the leading voices against the proposal.
“This material takes us back at least 50 years,” she said.
As Paraguay has never had a national sexual education policy, each school decides if and how to address the topic. According to Closs, many already use material similar to what the government is now proposing, including some by the same author.
Nevertheless, the activist argues that, between having no policy and implementing the one about to be approved, “it would be better for the ministry not to do anything”.
“You can’t fix material based on incorrect principles,” she said, adding: “They need to start it from scratch, this time having the participation of other ministries and genuine citizen involvement.”
