In Catholic Paraguay’s 1st sex ed program, condoms can’t be trusted, love is forever, boys don’t cry

[Pelican Press 0]

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In ********* Paraguay’s 1st **** ed program, condoms can’t be trusted, love is forever, boys don’t cry

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay (AP) — Ahead of her 15th birthday, Diana Zalazar’s body had gotten so big she could no longer squeeze into the dress she bought for her quinceañera to celebrate her passage into womanhood in Paraguay.

Her mother sought help from a doctor, who suspected that growing inside of the 14-year-old ********* choir girl could be a giant tumor. Next thing Zalazar knew, a gynecologist was wiping down the probe she’d applied to her belly and informing her that she was in her sixth month of pregnancy.

It made no sense to Zalazar, who had recently had **** for the first time without realizing it could make her pregnant.

In *********

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, which has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in South America, many young mothers explained their teen pregnancies to The Associated Press as the result of growing up in a country where parents avoid the birds and the bees talk at all costs and national **** education is indistinguishable from a hygiene lesson.

“I didn’t decide to become a mother,” Zalazar said. “I didn’t have a chance to choose because I didn’t have the knowledge.”

Over the years that Zalazar, now 39, has gone from ******* ignorance and shame to raising her 23-year-old son and advocating for children’s rights, Paraguay’s lack of **** education has remained unchanged — until now. For the first time, the Ministry of Education has endorsed a national **** ed curriculum. But in a surprising twist, it’s the ******* health educators and feminists who are panicked. ************* lobbyists are thrilled.

The curriculum, a copy of which was obtained by the AP, promotes abstinence, explains **** as “****’s invention for married people,” warns about the inefficacy of condoms and says nothing of ******* orientation or identity.

“We have a very strong Judeo-********** culture that still prevails, and there’s fierce resistance to anything that goes against our principles,” said Miguel Ortigoza, a key proponent of the curriculum and evangelical pastor from Capitol Ministries, a Washington-based nonprofit that ran

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.

As a

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for legal ********* and gay rights scores victories

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, a ************* backlash has gathered in Paraguay. The country already has among the world’s strictest ********* laws —

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even in cases of

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, though not when the mother’s life is in danger.

“Laws everywhere now allow ****** to ***** their *******, but Paraguay is among the remaining few saying no for ******’ sake,” said Oscar Avila, manager of an anti-********* shelter for young mothers in Paraguay’s capital. At a recent morning Mass, ****** no older than 15 filled the pews, some heavily pregnant, others with infants on their hips.

Critics explain the outsized power of Paraguay’s right-wing pressure groups as the consequence of a peculiar history. The ************* Colorado party has

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— including during a dictatorship openly sympathetic to Adolf *******.

“Growing up under the dictatorship, I was told homosexuality is a deviation,” said Simón Cazal, founder of Paraguayan LGBTQ+ rights group SomosGay. “The dictatorship legally ended, but the same political clans kept running the show.”

More recently, the

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has given the governing party’s platform of religion, family and “patria,” or fatherland, newer resonance — emboldening ************* culture warriors with evangelical ties to take their battles to classrooms.

In 2017, Paraguay became the first country to

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, an unwitting trailblazer for

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and

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. Now its **** ed curriculum has become a national flashpoint.

“The text is very dangerous, it’s an affront to science,” leftist Sen. Esperanza Martínez told a government committee recently convened to debate the curriculum.

Education Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez downplayed the controversy, stressing there was still time to improve the curriculum before enforcing it. “There’s no expenditure of state funds,” he told lawmakers. “Let’s not pass judgement until we do deeper work.”

Authorities assembled teams to revise the curriculum, called “12 Sciences of Sexuality and Affectivity Education,” which it plans to pilot in September across five eastern regions before taking it nationwide.

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praise the 12 books, one for each grade, as a way of teaching morals and protecting young people.

“It’s a real battle for life, family, the true rights of children and the freedom of parents,” said curriculum author Maria Judith Turriaga. “It’s the reason parents fought for it to be included in public schools.”

The curriculum instructs children to treat others with respect and cultivate healthy relationships.

But in discouraging contraception and enforcing traditional gender norms, it has become a lightning rod for social tensions. Critics say it perpetuates sexist stereotypes: “Men conquer, not seduce,” “****** have smaller and lighter brains,” “boys don’t cry easily,” “****** don’t like taking risks.”

Masturbation, it says, causes “frustration and isolation.” Marital love lasts forever. ****** should beware of “how their way of dressing makes men behave.” Female puberty is “the body preparing to become a wife and mother.”

The books are filled with unexpected claims, too — “Boys do not clearly perceive high-pitched voices,” it says.

Any talk of **** is about the ************* variety.

“Without a truly inclusive education that allows you to understand your reality, it’s scary,” said Yren Rotela, a trans activist whose identity as female at 13 pushed her into indentured servitude and **** work in a country where transgender identity is not legally recognized, there’s no legislation recognizing hate ******* and discrimination is widespread.

At a workshop in August, participants voiced alarm over parts of the curriculum emphasizing the duty of obedience to parents and authorities and urging pregnant teens to confide in their families — even as ******* ******** is typically perpetrated in the home.

“I never got help from my family, they were threatening me not to tell anyone,” said Liliana, who was ****** by her stepfather and became pregnant at 13, speaking on condition that only her first name be used because her case is under investigation.

The focus on unquestioned deference carries a political charge in Paraguay, where experts say ****** America’s longest-ruling dictatorship instilled an enduring autocratic tradition.

“It’s easy in this country to create authoritarian projects that play on people’s fears,” said Adriana Closs, president of Feipar, a Paraguayan group promoting comprehensive education. “Political factions are taking advantage of this because of the favorable global context.”

As the politics of social conservatism surge from

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to

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, Paraguayan lawmakers have found immense promise in agitating against what they hold is a Western *********** to feminize boys and make ****** gay.

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taps into collective trauma from the War of the Triple Alliance, which pitted Paraguay against Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and decimated more than half of its population. Paraguayans still have a habit of invoking the 1865-1870 conflict as if it happened last week.

“Paraguay is the perfect breeding ground for globalist conspiracies,” said Esteban Caballero, adviser for the ****** ********* Faculty of Social Sciences, a regional research group. “It’s not a fringe group of fanatics promoting this narrative, it’s a ************* society terrified by nonbinary identities. That means votes.”

Before 2023’s parliamentary elections, an annual transfer of ********* Union funds to Paraguay’s Education Ministry plunged politicians into a galvanizing battle.

Electoral debate pivoted from

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and neglected schools to accusations that the EU indoctrinates children about “gender ideology” through its financing agreement, “Transforming Education.”

The Senate narrowly rejected a bill that swept through the lower house ordering authorities to repeal EU funds, which in reality support anti-hunger initiatives.

As controversy swirled, ********* diplomats held a ceremony to change the agreement’s name to “Strengthening Education” for ***** the word “transforming” caused offense. President Santiago Peña appeared at Paraguay’s biggest evangelical *******, promising religious leaders increased influence over the national educational agenda.

“We see stronger support than in previous times,” Pastor Ortigoza said. “There’s greater sensitivity to our causes.”

___

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#********* #Paraguays #1st #**** #program #condoms #trusted #love #boys #dont #cry

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