Published: Saturday October 31, 2009 MYT 4:08:00 PM
Sex education in schools needed for students’s safety
By SHARON LING
KUCHING: Sex education should be introduced in schools to increase awareness and ensure the personal safety of children, Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department Fatimah Abdullah said.
She said sex education was currently not taught on its own, with only parts of it included in other subjects like biology or physical education.
“To me this is not sufficient. If we want to achieve the objective of increasing awareness and personal safety, more has to be done,” she told reporters after opening a seminar on “Training Our Children on Personal Safety” at the Islamic Information Centre here Saturday.
However, she said pragmatic measures were needed to teach schoolchildren on sex and personal safety as it would be difficult to introduce a new subject into the already-crowded school syllabus.
“I like what the Sarawak Women for Women Society (SWWS) has done in collaboration with the Women’s Bureau to hold seminars on empowering children and educating them about personal safety.
“At the end of the day, our children have to learn how to keep safe,” she said.
In addition, Fatimah said sexual education needed specially trained teachers to teach it as the subject was still considered taboo in the Malaysian cultural context.
“Training is important to enable them to de-sensitise the topic so that truthful and fruitful discussion can take place. The teacher must also be empathetic and not judgmental while being able to gain the trust of the children,” she said.
The one-day seminar was organised by SWWS, Women’s Bureau and state Social Development and Urbanisation Ministry for school students, parents and non-governmental organisations.
Meanwhile, keynote speaker Datuk Dr Chiam Heng Keng said research had shown that more Malaysian teenagers were now sexually active.
“We did a study some time ago and the number of students actively involved in sex was pretty high, about 30-odd percent. This figure also includes girls who were raped on dates, so it’s not all consensual,” she said.
Dr Chiam, a member of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam), said peer pressure and lack of strong family relationships were among the factors influencing teenage sexual activity.
She said the study also found that most of the sexual activity took place at home rather than outside.
“This is where parents must be very careful. When their children bring friends home to study, parents should not allow them to go and study in their room,” she said.
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