A young woman mulls over sex work at a karaoke bar to support her sick mother. A gay sports coach never has sex without a condom. Two teenagers should be studying—but they have a mutual attraction.
Grade 10 students in Myanmar were set to ponder these scenarios in the coming school year in a subject called life skills, but parts of the new textbook reached social media before the classroom, infuriating some Buddhist monks and conservative parents, who fear the case studies will trigger a wave of immorality.
“If we teach students sex education, it will encourage teenagers to have sex and more teenage pregnancies,” Pamaukkha, a prominent nationalist monk, told Myanmar Mix. “It will lead to more bad than good, which is why I have to protest against this curriculum.”
This is not the first time sex education has been taught here. The topic was tucked into life skills—along with information on HIV, nutrition, hygiene, and the environment—as part of a Unicef-backed extracurricular program in 1998.
But as an untested subject, and a source of embarrassment, teachers and students admit it was often skipped.
Taboo topic
In 2016, the government added life skills to the high school core curriculum and textbooks were gradually revised.
Next month is the turn of 14 to 15 year old students, who are more used to learning about reproductive health through social media, according to a Unicef survey.
But a nationwide debate has erupted over how the taboo topic should be taught.
In a now-deleted Facebook post on May 17, a doctor criticised monks who were against the lessons, accusing them of visiting brothels and watching pornography. For good measure, he said neither them nor the Myanmar military contribute to society.
Two days later, he visited his parents in the central Myanmar town of Meiktila—a military and Buddhist stronghold—where he was forced to apologise at a monastery as a baying mob gathered outside, calling for further punishment. He has since been charged with insulting the faith and faces up to two years in jail.
Military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) capitalized on the controversy by releasing a statement on May 20 arguing that sex education threatens Myanmar culture.
Capitulating somewhat to the pressure, officials in the education ministry held a press conference on May 22 in the capital Naypyidaw promising to review the material.
Helping young people
But the lessons will actually tackle teenage pregnancy, said doctor Phio Thiha, who leads training and clinical services at family planning charity DKT International.
Sex education will also combat child sex abuse, he said, and give people a firmer grasp of consent as well as knowledge on STIs, helping teenagers become more responsible in their approach towards sexual and reproductive health.
His charity released a 2019 survey of 1,000 unmarried adults aged 18 to 45 years in Myanmar that revealed three out of four respondents had never had sex education.
Although 62 percent wanted it on the syllabus, half the respondents believed “sometimes a boy has to force a girl to have sex, if he loves her.”
Meanwhile, 97 percent believed that girls should remain virgins till marriage whereas 76 percent thought the same should be true for boys.
As the issue blew up on social media, Phio Thiha began bi-weekly live Facebook chats for parents and teachers on sensitive topics, such as what to do if you find your teenager watching pornography.
“Parents are especially worried about it,” said Phio Thiha, adding that his second discussion on May 22 attracted about 40,000 views.
“Myanmar has been a very closed society because of taboos. It’s not open enough to accept some things, including diversity, respecting people’s rights, and sexual education.”
People believe sex education promotes sexual pleasure, he said, but he wants to spread the message that it “helps young people to be responsible for their actions.”
'Stray off course'
The USDP argue the lessons would undermine the age of consent, which is 14, and push the acceptance of LGBTQ couples, which it says goes against cultural norms. Gay sex is not just frowned upon, but also criminalised under Myanmar’s colonial-era penal code.
USDP MP Maung Thin urged parliament to amend or remove the revisions because he feared they could “arouse students,” but his proposal was rejected.
The revisions “make sense for people over the age of 30, who have already graduated, but not teenagers who are 14 or 15,” said the politician, whose constituency, Meiktila, was scene to the angry mob.
“In our culture, women should not have sex before marriage,” he said. “But this text book was written according to science. When science mixes with culture, that can hurt a culture.”
Instead, girls should be taught by their female relatives or a doctor should read medical facts to the classroom, he suggested.
Words such as “condom” are too brash for Myanmar culture and would need an alternative, he said.
“If it is not taught properly, teenagers will stray off course.”
Outside the classroom
The likelihood of heinous crimes such as the “Victoria” child rape case last May is increased because of the lack of education, said mother and entrepreneur Hla Hla Win.
Since she established “Bay Kin” or “Danger Free”—a series of sex education books in print and in a free app—last year, some monastic schools have ordered her books, she said, though overall, educators are reluctant to tackle the subject.
“If we are not learning to prepare for life, then what are we doing at school?” she said. “It’s about time to have this difficult discussion on whether it should stay taboo or not.”
Although the students might welcome the classes, “old-school minded teachers” could be a barrier, she said.
Nursing student Myo Myat Myat Thu, 19, remembers the teacher handing her class a book on the topic when she was 12 years old and “letting us read it by ourselves, without any explanation,” she said.
Like many modern-day teenagers in Myanmar, Facebook was where she turned for more information in the years to come.
“I saw a lot of posts about sex education,” she said. “I didn’t even need to read a book to learn about it.”
