SuPWR Co-Investigator & Bangladesh Country Lead, Maheen Sultan, of BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), shares her insights in this OpEd in The Daily Star on the ongoing SuPWR study on the backlash against promoting comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in Bangladesh.
OpEd
In light of the recent removal of ‘Sharifa’s Tale’ from the seventh-grade textbook, Maheen Sultan, senior fellow of Practice, Gender and Social Transformation at BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), shares her insights with Tamanna Khan of The Daily Star on an ongoing study on the backlash against promoting comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in Bangladesh.
What led you to explore the resistance against comprehensive sexuality education?
All over the world, we have been noticing a backlash against the progress made by the women’s movement to ensure women’s rights and gender equality, and measures taken by the government to protect and promote them. Our research team is part of a regional programme which includes four South Asian countries—India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. In each country, we have chosen different case studies in areas where we think there has been very strong opposition to what women’s movements are trying to achieve. For example, we looked at the case of rape law reform, child marriage, struggle for decent wages in the RMG sector and CSE as well.
The latest controversy with the Sharif-Sharifa text shows that teaching CSE is still a sensitive matter. Opposition to CSE is always not as visible or outspoken as it was in this case. However, it is very evident that teachers do not want to teach the curriculum, parents are often resistant, and people sometimes stigmatise teachers who teach these courses. There is a collective reluctance to talk about issues which go beyond health. Most people do not want to talk about issues surrounding sexual health, sexuality or access to contraception. They keep the discussions limited to reproductive health instead of talking about sexual and reproductive health and rights.
