Young People Need Evidenced-Based Information Too
Ishita Chaudhry
I grew up in India with very little information about my sexuality, my body, or my right to health. My first memory of being taught about the human body was in primary school, when my teacher listed our body parts, “Head, face, neck, shoulders, stomach, hands, knees and toes.” I remember my friend asking the teacher, where the vagina was. We’d read the word in a book and didn’t know what it meant. We both got yelled at, with my friend being sent to the principal for “inappropriate conduct” and my class being given a lesson in how children from good families didn’t read “dirty things.” I was 10 years old at the time.
Sixteen years later, at a workshop on sexuality education with young people in Delhi, a 20 year-old female college student from a well-known university asked one of my colleagues if the clitoris is in the foot and is an organ that keeps the heart healthy. Her question is not unusual. My colleague took it in stride and provided her with accurate information.
It’s disappointing that throughout the course of our youth and adolescence, so many young people do not get even basic information about their anatomy, and even more disappointing considering that there are 1.2 billion people between the ages of 10 and 19 in the world today – the largest generation of adolescents ever. Young people, especially girls and young women, face great challenges to their well-being and their human rights. To face these challenges young people need evidence-based, accurate information about their sexual and reproductive rights and health, as well as support and skills to feel comfortable and confident about their bodies and their sexuality.
