A girl child’s cry for sex education
A 16-year-old Form Four student at Maun Senior Secondary School, Constance Morwanoke, has called on parents and the society at large to take the responsibility of educating girls on sexual matters seriously.
Speaking during the commemoration of International Day of the Girl Child on Monday in Maun, Morwanoke highlighted the importance of sex education in today’s digital generation.
“I have a problem with social media because there is a lot shared in there. Currently, there is this thing called mjolo wa nyesa ama2k. We share pictures, we share everything that comes into our minds,” explained Morwanoke.
She was in fact cautioning other girls about the advantages and disadvantages of using the internet, which she said can either build or break a child.
Her contention was that sharing information or pictures without thinking it through can lead to far reaching consequences for girls hence the need for constant guidance from parents.
“Girl children are going through a lot, we need mentors, we need to know where we are going, who we are and we can only do that when we have guidance. There is a lot of information out there which we don’t know what to do with,” she noted.
Morwanoke in fact stated that today’s children get information about sex on the internet because parents are failing them by treating sex as a taboo subject.
“We do not know what sex is per say as African children. We only learn about sex at school, not at home. That is why we have high cases of teenage pregnancy, because although we say charity begins at home, our parents fail to address topics like this one,” she noted, before adding that, “It is important for a girl child to access information. You all will be surprised when I talk about sex and say, ‘oh my God, where does she get that information!’… because our parents never sit us down about sex. my mother never sat me down about having feelings for a guy. my mother never sat me down to tell me about STIs, about condomising, about consequences. they never really talk about these issues, that is why there is need to access the internet, so we can get the needed information.”
Morwanoke further said that although there is need to access the internet, children need constant guidance as a lot is happening on digital platforms, including cyber-bullying, peer pressure and child pornography among others.
“We need to know how to use the internet,” she emphasised.
“The other thing is that schools need to step in and empower students because our parents have failed to raise us into the digital generation, so we need NGOs to stand in the gap, help us to know who we are in this generation, on the internet, on social media. It is going to take a lot of people and time to raise awareness to tell our parents that they need to talk to us about these things in a fast-changing world,” she said.
The event was organised by a Maun-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), Queen Esther, and it was in its fifth year running.
This year, they held the celebrations in partnership with Love Botswana outreach mission.
As a parting shot, Morwanoke called on her peers to initiate topics around sex at home.
To the primary school learners who were in attendance, she said, “I know it is not easy to start the topic, but when you get home, sit down with your mother and ask her to tell you how she met your father as a starting point because if you directly ask her to talk about sex, trust me, she will shut you up.”
