Newly elected president of the Jamaica Association for Guidance Counsellors in Education (JAGCE), Nina Dixon, raised concerns recently that several of the approximately 800 guidance counsellors who work in schools are refusing to offer counsel to students who identify as gay or lesbian.

She reportedly said “…counsellors who are of the Christian faith…will not touch it or look at those students at all”. Dixon’s comments raise many questions that require constructive answers to ensure all stakeholders, including guidance counsellors, are equipped to contribute to the holistic development of all children under their care. At this point we are woefully short on facts.

Predictably, though, there has been a rush in some quarters to politicise the issues, beat down Christianity, and promote the concept of the victimised gay student. There was an immediate call elsewhere in the media for the removal of “…radicalised faith-based guidance counsellors in Jamaica’s public schools…” who are causing “…emotional harm to marginalised communities”.

This call is indicative of a new approach to children’s rights being pushed by activists in the non-goverment organisation (NGO), media and education sectors. Recall the Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) curriculum, otherwise known as “sex text”, which embarrassed the Ministry of Education and was pulled from schools in 2012, and the Jamaicans For Justice sex education course in privately run children’s homes which precipitated the group’s near demise in 2014. Sexual rights advocates are attempting to harvest our children by labelling and claiming them as members of marginalised communities. They have put a new spin on human rights standards as they apply to children, which is part of a larger international agenda.

In October last year, the United Nations Family Planning Agency (UNFPA), in a report entitled ‘The MSM Implementation Toolkit’, applied a new definition of MSMs as “men who have sex with men”, and “should be understood to include young men, ie those in the age range 10-24 years”. UNFPA’s intention was to define this marginalised community so that it could be strengthened and empowered to promote the cultural acceptance of homosexual behaviour.

UNFPA co-authored the report with several groups, including the World Health Organization, the United States Agency for International Development and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, “While the report ostensibly aims to prevent the spread of diseases, it instead attempts to turn high-risk behaviours into a ‘community’ — encompassing 10-year-olds being abused or sold for sex…”

Regardless of which side one stands on the human rights divide, it is important not to label the normal questioning teen as gay simply because they have questions about themselves. In a 2004 article entitled ‘Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Adolescent Brain’, published by the esteemed New York Academy of Sciences, J M Giedd stated that the adolescent brain is incomplete in its development, especially with regard to its reasoning and decision-making powers. Giedd wrote: “The portion of the brain slowest to develop and last to mature is the part that enables us to foresee the consequences of our actions. It is the part that guides moral judgement…The dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex important for controlling impulses is among the latest brain regions to mature without reaching adult dimensions until the early 20s.”

In 2005, the respected

American Journal of Preventive Medicine published an article titled ‘Which Comes First in Adolescence: Sex and Drugs or Depression?’. It concluded that, “Engaging in sex and drug behaviours places adolescents, and especially girls, at risk for future depression. Future research is needed to better understand the mechanisms of the relationship between adolescent behaviour and depression, and to determine whether interventions to prevent or stop risky behaviours will also reduce the risk of later depression.”

There is no shortage of science pointing to the unhealthy consequences of homosexual behaviours, premature and promiscuous sex. Yet International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), a global NGO promoting sexual and reproductive health, which enjoys special status at the United Nations, advises young people (including those under 10 years old) that they have the right to sexual pleasure. Incidentally, IPPF was one of the external partners of the Ministry of Education which supported the process of the HFLE curriculum development.

In one of its publications titled “Healthy, Happy and Hot — A Young Person’s Guide to their Rights, Sexuality and Living with HIV”, IPPF says “Sex can feel great and be really fun! Many people think sex is just about vaginal or anal intercourse, but there are lots of different ways to have sex and lots of different types of sex…there is no right or wrong way to have sex…it’s your body, you choose what you do, when you do it, how and with whom…Your local family planning clinic can help you create a plan — whether it’s for having children safely, preventing or terminating unplanned pregnancies.” IPPF encourages young people to get safe abortions, saying women may have an unplanned pregnancy even if they and their partner(s) “use contraceptives and may wish to terminate their pregnancy by having a safe abortion…Unplanned pregnancies can be stressful for both partners and can strain the relationship”. IPPF goes on to suggest that young people should access safe abortion procedures and follow-up services.

Behavioural studies in 2008 indicated that one in every three gay men in Jamaica was HIV-positive and a significant number of this cohort was between the ages of 15 and 24. Transactional sex and casual sex were and still are common among adolescent males and females.

Jamaica’s children are in moral and physical danger. This is in spite of the raft of domestic laws and international treaty obligations. Section 10 of the Sexual Offences Act provides that a person who has sexual intercourse with another person who is under the age of 16 years commits an offence. Chapter III of the constitution states that every child has a right to such measures of protections as are required by virtue of the status of being a minor or as part of the family, society and the State. The preamble to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child calls for the legal protection of children before as well as after birth.

New interpretations of children’s rights aim to remove morality as a yardstick for measuring behaviour. For the sake of our children, that agenda must not succeed.