[child-rights] United States: Restrictive Sex Ed Impedes AIDS Prevention

"Abstinence-only" programs censor HIV/AIDS information

(New York, September 18, 2002) - Programs teaching teenagers to "just
say no" to sex before marriage are threatening adolescent health by
censoring basic information about how to prevent HIV/AIDS, Human
Rights Watch charged in a new report (http://hrw.org/reports/2002/usa0902/) 
released today.

The forty-seven page report focuses on federally funded
"abstinence-only-until-marriage" programs in Texas, where advertising
campaigns convey the message that teenagers should not use condoms
because they don't work. Some school-based programs in Texas do not
mention condoms at all.

Federal health agencies share the broad scientific consensus that
condoms, when used correctly, are highly effective in preventing the
transmission of HIV. Yet the U.S. government currently spends more
than $100 million each year on "abstinence-only-until-marriage"
programs, which cannot by law "promote or endorse" condoms or provide
instruction regarding their use. The Bush administration is
advocating a 33 percent increase in funding for these programs.

"The Bush administration wants to spend millions more dollars on
abstinence-only programs that put teenagers at higher risk for HIV,"
said Rebecca Schleifer, HIV/AIDS researcher at Human Rights Watch.
"In Texas, these programs don't just censor information, they
actively promote misinformation about condoms. And they deprive
adolescents of one of the most important tools that they need to
protect themselves from HIV."

U.S. federal government organizations that set public health
standards, including the Institute of Medicine, the National
Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control, all agree
that providing complete and accurate information to adolescents about
the proper use of condoms to reduce the risk of HIV transmission is
an essential part of the limited anti-HIV arsenal. The U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services has included among its
objectives increasing the proportion of adolescents who "use condoms
if sexually active."

This policy clearly puts these federal government organizations at
odds with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' divisions
that run the abstinence-only programs, which cannot by law provide
this advice.

Texas' programs provide no such information. In McLennan County,
which has one of the state's highest rates of teen pregnancy, the
federally funded "Truth for Youth" radio and television ad campaign
suggests that parents who advise their children to use condoms may
actually be putting their children's lives at risk. Adolescents and
adults who have heard these ads report that they don't use or don't
trust condoms because they heard on television or radio that they
don't work.

Another federally funded program in Temple, Texas plans to include an
exercise that compares pieces of latex condoms with plastic of
different thicknesses that is designed to teach that condoms are not
effective because they are thinner than many kinds of plastic, and
easily broken by fingernails. Teachers in Laredo's abstinence program
don't mention condoms at all.

Texas' commitment to abstinence-only programs has infected other
sources of HIV/AIDS prevention information by restricting access to
experts on HIV/AIDS prevention and by crowding out other sources of
HIV prevention information. An HIV/AIDS educator in McLennan County
was told that she could not speak to students in an abstinence-only
classroom about prevention of HIV by using condoms. Many recipients
of federal HIV prevention money likewise provide limited or no
information about condoms in their HIV prevention trainings.

Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs are particularly harmful to
gay and lesbian adolescents. The programs must teach that marriage is
the only appropriate context for sexual activity and further that
"sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have
harmful psychological and physical effects." Federal law limits
marriage to heterosexual couples. And, same-sex couples can't legally
marry in any U.S. state.

"Teaching gay and lesbian youth that there is no safe way for them to
have a sexual relationship-even when they become adults-only
reinforces the hostile environment that many of them already
experience at school," said Schleifer. "Denying them access to
relevant and potentially life-saving information about how to have a
safe sexual relationship only makes this situation worse."

Human Rights Watch's report focuses on Texas to illustrate problems
posed by abstinence-only programs nationwide. Texas receives a
substantial share of federal abstinence-only funding, and its
programs command nationwide influence. Two of its programs are among
the eleven chosen for an evaluation of federally funded
abstinence-only programs.

Human Rights Watch found that federally funded
abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in Texas interfere with
fundamental rights guaranteed by international law, including the
right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds
and the right to the highest attainable standard of health. Because
AIDS is a fatal disease that yet has no cure, the government's
failure to provide complete and accurate information about HIV/AIDS
prevention may also impede the right to life.

Human Rights Watch calls on the U.S. government to repeal
abstinence-only-until-marriage legislation and to enact in its place
legislation supporting comprehensive sex education that would include
information and instruction about HIV/AIDS prevention, including the
use of condoms for this purpose.


HRW Press release