2023-11-04 20:35:13
Comprehensive sexual education (CSE) in Argentina continues to be a fundamental tool in the fight for gender equality and in the prevention of violence and abuse. In this context, the Federal Movement for More ESI emerged, a group of teachers and activists committed to the consolidation and expansion of ESI throughout the country.
Since its sanction in 2006, the ESI has had a significant impact on Argentine society. 80% of girls, boys and adolescents in Buenos Aires who were victims or witnesses of abuse were able to recognize it thanks to the tools provided by its implementation in schools, according to data from the Public Guardianship Ministry of that province, in 2019. For their part, Argentina also managed to reduce the rate of teenage pregnancies by almost 60%, according to data from the Ministry of Social Development of the Nation in 2022, data that is associated, among other factors, with the implementation of sexual education in schools. Furthermore, 50.63% of young people stated that they identified situations of violence in their peer group thanks to the ESI, according to the #EsConESI report by Fusa and Impacto Digital, promoted by the Spotlight Initiative, a global alliance of the Union European Union and the United Nations.
Natalia Di Marco, teacher and specialist in comprehensive sexual education from Córdoba, highlighted the importance of CSE in the transformation of society and the promotion of diversity in schools. According to Natalia, “the ESI has contributed to disarming and making visible the violence that historically oppressed girls, boys, adolescents, women and dissidents. Furthermore, it has allowed us to explore new possibilities of happiness, pleasure and freedom in relation to our bodies and relationships.”
The Federal Movement for More ESI emerges in a context marked by conservative discourses that question ESI as public policy. Dolores Covasevich, a teacher from Santa Fe and member of the movement, stressed in dialogue with The voice the importance of defending ESI at a time when its achievements are questioned. According to her, “CSE is a right of girls, boys and adolescents, and it is necessary to defend and promote it.”
This movement emerged following the presidential primaries in order to unite people from various professions and workplaces who share a commitment to CSE. By then one of the main presidential candidates, Javier Milei, assured that if he won the elections, he would eliminate the application of the law.
The purpose of the movement is to weave networks and join forces to continue expanding and strengthening education in the country. It is made up of teachers, activists, members of unions, university institutions, non-formal educational spaces, social organizations, communicators and journalists, popular educators, territorial gender promoters, among others.
The Movement set itself the task of making visible and coordinating the work carried out by specialists from different provinces. “Activating the movement is also making visible the work that is being done throughout the country,” Covasevich acknowledged.
In addition, they are developing a campaign under the slogan “Democracy and ESI, 40 years, 40 reasons”, which seeks to highlight the importance of ESI in the context of the 40 years of democracy in Argentina. The central event of this campaign will be a collective reading that will be shared online on November 13 on the PORMAS ESI YouTube channel.
The common obstacle they face is the lack of implementation of ESI uniformly across the country. Each province and school has its specific focus and challenges, and the movement seeks to address these issues and promote a more effective and transversal implementation of CSE.
Dolores Covasevich, who in addition to having a degree in Educational Sciences, participates in educational management spaces such as the National University of Rosario, the Ministry of Gender and Diversity of the Nation, recognizes the commitment and interest of teachers in ESI (which is often expressed in the number of attendees at each talk on the topic), as well as the need to involve families and the educational community in the process.
In addition, he explains that not only training is necessary but also the transversality of ESI in all areas of knowledge, in an involvement that challenges the teacher’s own journey in his life to be able to promote values such as dialogue, listening from the classes. , empathy and respect.
A student body that is changing
From 2006 to today, society changed, awareness regarding certain social problems changed, and with it, school students as well. Both Di Marco and Covasevich review that in those 17 years there were laws such as the gender identity law, which expanded the visibility of diverse identities, the NiUnaMenos movement of 2015, the discussion for legal abortion of 2018 and 2020. Therefore, the proposals of the same students is not the same a decade ago as it is now.
“There is a profound cultural transformation that has been taking place and for which ESI was a path that also opened other possibilities of life, of projects, of subjectivities that allow the construction of freer and ultimately happier life projects,” he indicated. Say Marco. So, in addition to denaturalizing the historical violence to which women and children were subjected, CSE also allows us to think regarding other ways of being in society.
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