In a Facebook post, Kerala Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, has stressed the need for the first lessons of sex education to begin at home. He recently released a short animated film on his Facebook page to educate parents and children on the importance of sex education.
In the post, Vijayan writes about the pitfalls of half-baked, unscientific knowledge that students tend to learn from various sources. Unscientific notions about sexuality are a barrier, he says, to healthy man-woman relationship and building a society based on gender equality. Providing scientific sex education to the younger generation is imperative for the growth of a modern society. “Instead of evading children’s questions about sexuality, parents should provide them with correct information and clear their doubts. If not, children may turn to unscientific sources for answers, and imbibe wrong notions in the process.”
The three-minute animation short film, Let Us Be Frank, has been brought out as part of the ‘Namukku Valaram Nannayi Valartham’ responsible parenting campaign of the Women and Child Development Department under the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS). The animation, developed by the Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT), is intended to generate a discussion on sex education and how its foundations should be built at home by parents, say ICPS officials.