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NACO to review sex education module

Special Correspondent

Follows protests over “explicit nature”

NEW DELHI: The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) will shortly set up a task force to review its module on sex education. This follows protests in some States over the ‘explicit’ nature of education that was being imparted in the schools, based on the module prepared by the NACO and UNAIDS.

At the launch of the National Women Forum, a wing of the Indian Network of People Living with HIV — an NGO — NACO Director-General Sujatha Rao said the task force would comprise academics, officials from the Union Human Resource Ministry, the Vidyasagar Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, New Delhi, and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, and women activists who would review the module.

The task force would be asked to submit its report in six months, she said.

Ms. Sujatha Rao said that the ‘explicit’ material, to which there was objection from several quarters, was meant for teachers and not students. “It is disturbing that States are banning sex education but we want to have a consensus on the issue. There is no harm about taking a second opinion on our module but we want a clear message to go across,” she said.

Earlier, Minister of State for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury said those who opposed sex education were ‘hypocrites.’ She said public figures and leaders should speak the language of the people so that they could clearly understand health issues, particularly HIV/AIDS.

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