Ecuadorian government distributing textbooks that encourage teens to experiment with sex

Quito, Ecuador, Nov 7, 2006 / 22:00 pm

With financial backing from the Dutch government, the government of Ecuador has begun distributing textbooks in schools throughout the country that separate sexuality from moral values, ridicule abstinence, and encourage sexual activity among teens.

The Ministry of Education, which has published the textbooks with the support of the Pan-American Organization of Health, the Dutch Service of Cooperation for Development, and the Dutch Embassy, said the use of the textbooks is obligatory.

In the editions developed for 13 and 14 year-olds, the textbooks present masturbation as “a normal and expected expression of human development.”  Masturbation, the book says, “helps you to release tension and to get to know own body.  During puberty it can help you as a way of learning about sexual pleasure.”

The books treat abstinence with disdain, calling it “the voluntary privation of the total or partial satisfaction of something, in this case, of sex.”  The books make no mention of marriage, chastity, values, respect or fidelity.”

Priscila de Barahona, director of the Pro-Life Action organization, told CNA the books are available to kids as young as 10 years old.  “They incite them to use contraceptives, they recommend masturbation, they present sexually transmitted diseases as problems that can only be solved medically without any consideration for prevention, and they treat the condom as the only means for protection against AIDS, without mentioning its familiar defects.”