Catholic World News Service Nov 18
MOSCOW (CWN) A group of Russian psychologists, lawmakers, and political activists on Monday said they want to keep sex education programs out of schools, despite promises by proponents that they would curb AIDS and abortion.
The group told reporters at a news conference that the programs would only increase sexual activity among teens, not decrease it. “[Sex] education will lead not only to sexual promiscuity and sexual excesses, but it will also lead to a tremendous growth of psychological pathologies and spur drug addiction and alcoholism,” children’s psychiatrist Boris Drapkin said. While the country has seen an explosion of prostitution and pornography since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992, the country continues to resist outside attempts to indoctrinate children in Western ideas of sexuality. “The introduction into our mentality of … American views is a violation of the ecology of the soul—and the dangers of mindless intervention into ecology are well known,” psychiatrist Yuri Shevchenko said.
An experimental sex education program, sponsored by the United Nations, was launched last year, but quickly suspended following an uproar of protests over its explicit texts. The course, covering a wide range of topics, was taught to children aged 12-14 in 16 schools throughout Russia. Text books offered explicit sexual information, stressed health risks of teen-age pregnancies and abortion, called for tolerance for sexual minorities including homosexuals, and advocated the use of contraceptives.