New Delhi: Renuka Chowdhury, Union Women and Child Development Minister, is all for sex education and she is not shying away from expressing her opinion.
"We have a one billion population and we don't want to talk about sex. We have to be vocal on such issues. If we don't then it will effect the generations to come," she said. Opposition to sex education is “moral hypocrisy and just posturing on the part of those who are opposing it," she was quoted by PTI as saying.
The Minister’s comments come after senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Saturday said that sex education would create an “immoral society” and lead to a collapse of the education system. “The proposed sex education modules are an encouragement rather than education about sex,” the former Human Resources Development Minister has said. Joshi has even called for boycotting CBSE schools if they take up sex education.
Chowdhury, who was speaking at an NGO’s function, rejected such views and said public figures and leaders should speak the language of the people so that they could clearly understand health issues, particularly HIV/AIDS
Sujatha Rao, director general of National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), said she was ready for a review of the sex education module but it must not be banned.
"There is no harm about taking a second opinion on our module. But we want the message to be loud and clear for the senior secondary students to understand. There should be no shadow boxing about HIV/AIDS," she emphasised.
"It is disturbing that states are banning sex education. But we want to have a consensus on the subject. It could be culture specific," Rao said.
Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka have either banned sex education or called for a review of textbooks after opposition from teachers and some political leaders.
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