For long, the idea of educating teenagers in our homes about the dangers involved in sex has remained a taboo particularly in Northern Nigeria where parents, cultures and societies frown at discussing about the issue of sex with their adolescent children.
They believe that sex education should be reserved for elders, forgetting that teenagers know a lot about sex education as the world is increasingly digitised, destroying the foundation of many cultures and societies.
It is important to teach teenagers sex education in a way that will reflect family values and enhance sustainability of a balanced culture. Having sex is primal, intrinsic natural human tendency that emerge in all people, particularly with teenagers in different form and at different times.
Apparently, if parents do not educate the teenagers in their homes and respective communities on sex and sex related issues, there is the tendency for them to learn it from other people, peer group or mass media. Sex education is not only significant as a developmental process of a teenager, but helps him/her understand the dangers involved when engaged to his/her immediate environment and the threat that could emerge from such interaction. In other words, they will gain incremental knowledge of the ability to protect themselves and alert people of the threats of sexual exploitation if they are earlier educated.
The education will further enlighten them about the dangers of sex before marriage, and better understanding of humanity, reproductive rights and developmental processes such as puberty. It provides safety for those whose lives are already infiltrated by messages from the media that may not reflect core family values, thereby sending messages of self-appreciation, self-esteem and highlight the facts that the change they are experiencing or would experience is indeed normal.
Humans are curious animals and young people are exploratory in expression of their intrinsic curiosity. Peer pressure and media are enormous influence in the lives of the present generation, and if the teenagers did not acquire sound knowledge about sex, somehow they will learn in a way that may have devastating consequences. Some education will serve as counter insurgency to the core that has been declared against family values by mass media.
The focal objective of this awareness is to guide against the increasing number of teenagers who are now victims of unwanted pregnancy, sexual transmitted diseases (STDs), HIV/AIDS frequently found among them all over the globe, thus in return destroying the future leaders of various communities.
Effective awareness on sex related issues will help to minimise the high rate of sexual abuse among teenagers, because when they are well informed about sex and its consequences, it will help to minimize the high rate of sexuality among them and they will grow up with such moral values, which will distinguished them from animals.
More so, they are most regarded as the workforce of any economy, because without them the labour force in most communities will be inactive and dormant. So, when such people are well preserved from the dangers of sex outside marriage through awareness at their early age, there will be a great chance of that economy to grow faster and stronger.
Muhammad Kagu,
Department of Mass Communication,
University of Maiduguri