EFZ PRESS STATEMENT
COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION (CSE) AND THE LAUNCH OFTHE “PROTECT ZAMBIAN CHILDREN COALITION” PETITION PROCESS” DELIVERED BY THE EFZ BOARD CHAIR- BISHOP PAUL E. MUSUSU
ON FRIDAY 18TH SEPTEMBER, 2020- EFZ SECRETARIAT
Your Graces, the Bishops and all other Senior Clergy – Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press: Good morning.
We welcome you all to this Press briefing, and thank you for coming, as we issue this Communique on a very important national matter.
Yesterday, we delivered a letter to the office of the Honourable minister of General Education Honourable Dr. Dennis Wanchinga, MP and a copy of the same to the Honourable Minister of National Guidance and Religious Affairs Honourable Rev Godfridah Sumaili, MP.
The letter is an appeal for the Ministry of General Education to immediately withdraw Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) from the Zambian Education curriculum.
What is Comprehensive Sexuality Education? This is a programme to which various countries are signatories, and in our region, the Eastern and Southern African (ESA) “Commitment” on comprehensive sexuality education was signed by Government representatives but without proper consultation with Parliament, parents or religious leaders. It is already running in 75 per cent of Zambian schools.
These are the key elements of Comprehensive Sexuality Education:
- CSE teaches children to masturbate.
- CSE encourages acceptance and exploration of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.
- CSE promotes high risk sexual behaviours (including anal and oral sex) and teaches that they are safe.
- CSE promotes sexual pleasure and promiscuity as a right for children.
- CSE promotes abortion as safe and without consequences.
- CSE encourages children to experiment sexually with individuals of their own sex or the opposite sex.
- CSE claims that access to “comprehensive sexuality education” is a human right.
- CSE teaches children and youth they are sexual from birth.
- CSE promotes condoms to children without informing them of their failure rates.
- CSE promotes disrespect for parents and religious and cultural values.
- CSE promotes sexual counselling, information or services to minors without parental consent.
- CSE trains children to advocate for their “sexual rights” in laws and policies.
- CSE encourages “peer to peer” sexuality education.
In our letter we have also notified the Ministry of General Education of the formal launch of an online petition dubbed the Protect Zambian Children Coalition, being a local effort that is a part of the global ‘Protect the Child Health’ Coalition, in collaboration with Family Watch International (FWI) of USA, who, with similar concerns, have taken a global stand against CSE.
We have highlighted, in our letter, that the aim of the online petition is three-fold:
- To galvanize voices from a cross-section of our constituents and citizens in general, towards calling upon our Government to withdrawfrom the deceptive Ministerial Commitment on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) that committed Zambia’s schools to teach highly controversial and harmful CSE programs to children in 75 per cent of Zambia’s schools.
Although the Eastern and Southern African (ESA) “Commitment” on comprehensive sexuality education was signed by Zambian Government representatives, every Zambian parent has the “prior right” to direct the education of their children. Article 26 (3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says this: “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” Parental participation in the choice of education for children is therefore an imperative, which our regional governments have violated.
- To call attention towards the need to endany and all agreements, plans, or projects with known global agencies, foreign governments or foreign-funded NGOs to implement CSE programmes, including those which normalize extramarital sexual conduct, especially between children of minor age (whether heterosexual or homosexual), or that include graphic or pornographic materials, that teach children they have “sexual rights” or how to “consent” to sexual acts, or that teach unscientific gender identity theories (i.e., claiming genders or sexes exist other than male or female or that sex is fluid and can be changed).
- To call attention towards the need to conduct a comprehensive review of sex and sexuality education programs in Zambian public schools, universities, and teacher training initiatives, including those being implemented under the guise of sexual or reproductive health education or preventing HIV, pregnancy, sexual abuse, violence, using formal, non-formal, or peer-to-peer modalities, both inside and outside of schools, and remove all those that contain any of the common 15 harmful CSE elements.
We have provided evidence from research that demonstrates the lamentable failure rate of CSE programmes in the schools. Accordingly, we have caution strongly that these ineffective and highly controversial CSE programmes mostly pushed by foreign entities, are harming Zambia’s children and that it must be stopped.
In this respect, the Protect Zambian Children Coalition advises the Government of the Republic of Zambia through the Ministry of General Education to immediately withdraw the Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) which has already been rolled out in classrooms at schools around the country.
In simple terms, CSE, if permitted to run its course will turn our boys and girls into prostitutes and sex maniacs with no capacity to raise and run families in respectable homes. CSE will produce sex addicts who will be social misfits and causes of major social upheavals in the republic.
Further information is provided in the EFZ Full Communique.
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EFZ Statement: EFZ STATEMENT-communique on Comprehensive Sexuality Education- FINAL COPY – FULL VERSION-delivered 18 september
Full Communique: EFZ SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS – CSE WITHDRAWAL – FINAL COPY