Asuncion, Paraguay – Before her 15th birthday, Diana Zalazar’s body grew so large that she could not fit into the dress she bought for her quinceañera to celebrate her becoming a woman in Paraguay.
Her mother sought help from a doctor, who suspected that the growth inside the 14-year-old Catholic choir girl could be a giant tumor. Then Zalazar knew, the gynecologist was wiping down the probe she would apply to her belly and told her that she was six months pregnant.
It didn’t matter to Zalazar, who didn’t know for the first time that she could be pregnant.
In Catholic Paraguay, which has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in South America, many young mothers explained teenage pregnancy to The Associated Press as a result of growing up in a country where parents avoid the birds and the bees talk at all costs and national sex education indistinguishable from hygiene lessons.
“I didn’t decide to be a mother,” Zalazar said. “I don’t have a chance to vote because I don’t have the knowledge.”
Over the years Zalazar, now 39, has been sexually ignorant and ashamed to raise her 23-year-old son and advocate for children’s rights, the lack of sex education in Paraguay has remained unchanged – until now. For the first time, the Ministry of Education approved the national sex education curriculum. But in a surprising way, sexual health educators and feminists are panicking. Conservative lobbyists love it.
The curriculum, a copy of which was obtained by AP, promotes abstinence, explains sex as “God’s invention for married people,” warns about the ineffectiveness of condoms and says nothing about sexual orientation or identity.
Jorge Saenz/AP
“We have a very strong Judeo-Christian culture that still exists, and there is strong resistance to anything that goes against our principles,” said Miguel Ortigoza, a major proponent of the curriculum and evangelical pastor of Capitol Ministries, a Washington-based nonprofit. ran a Bible study for former President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.
As a new generation of activists campaign for legal abortion and gay rights scored a victory in Latin America, a conservative reaction has gathered in Paraguay. The country already has the strictest abortion laws in the world – punishable by prison time even in the case of incest or rape, although not when the mother’s life is in danger.
“Laws everywhere now allow girls to kill their babies, but Paraguay is among the few who still say no to Jesus,” said Oscar Avila, manager of an anti-abortion shelter for young mothers in Paraguay’s capital. At a recent morning Mass, girls no older than 15 filled the pews, some heavily pregnant, others with babies on their hips.
Critics explain the enormous power of Paraguay’s right-wing pressure groups as the result of a peculiar history. The conservative Colorado party has governed the state for 76 of the past 80 years – including during a dictatorship sympathetic to Adolf Hitler.
“Growing up under the dictatorship, I was told homosexuality was deviant,” said Simón Cazal, founder of Paraguayan LGBTQ+ rights group SomosGay. “The dictatorship is legally over, but the same political clan keeps running the show.”
More recently, the rise of the far right in Latin America has given the governing platform of religious parties, family and “patria,” or fatherland, new resonance – emboldening conservative culture warriors with evangelical ties to take the fight to the classroom.
In 2017, Paraguay became the first country to ban school discussions about gender identity, which was a surprise to European populists and Republican governors. Now the sex ed curriculum has become a national flashpoint.
“The text is very dangerous, it is an insult to science,” said Sen. Esperanza Martínez left to the government committee that recently met to debate the curriculum.
Education Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez downplayed the controversy, insisting there is still time to improve the curriculum before implementing it. “There is no cost to state funds,” the lawmakers said. “Let’s not decide before doing deeper work.”
Authorities assembled a team to revise the curriculum, called “12 Sciences of Sexuality and Affectivity Education,” which they plan to launch in September in five eastern regions before taking it nationwide. Parents’ rights groups are praising the 12 books, one for each grade, as a way to teach morals and protect young people.
“This is a real battle for life, the family, the true rights of children and the freedom of parents,” said curriculum author Maria Judith Turriaga. “That’s the reason parents are fighting to get them into public schools.”
The curriculum instructs children to respect others and develop healthy relationships.
But to reduce contraception and enforce traditional gender norms, has become a lightning rod for social tension. Critics say it perpetuates sexist stereotypes: “Men conquer, not seduce,” “girls have smaller, lighter brains,” “men don’t cry easily,” “women don’t like to take risks.”
Masturbation, he says, causes “frustration and isolation.” Marital love lasts forever. Girls should be careful “how the way they dress makes a man.” Female puberty is “the body preparing to become a wife and mother.”
The books are also filled with unexpected claims – “Boys don’t recognize high-pitched voices,” they say.
Any talk of sex is about the heterosexual variety.
“Without a truly inclusive education that allows you to understand the truth, it’s scary,” said Yren Rotela, a trans activist whose identity as a female at the age of 13 pushed her into slavery and sex work in a country where transgender identity is not legally recognized. there are no laws that recognize hate crimes and discrimination is widespread.
At a workshop in August, participants voiced alarm over parts of the curriculum that emphasize obedience to parents and authorities and ask pregnant teenagers to rely on their families – even though sexual assaults usually take place at home.
“I never asked for help from my family, they threatened not to tell anyone,” said Liliana, who was raped by her stepfather and became pregnant at the age of 13, on the condition that only her first name be used because her case is under investigation. .
The focus on unquestioned deference has drawn political accusations in Paraguay, where experts say Latin America’s longest-running dictatorship has created an enduring autocratic tradition.
“It’s easy in this country to create authoritarian projects that cause people to fear,” said Adriana Closs, president of Feipar, a Paraguayan group that promotes comprehensive education. “Political factions take advantage of this because of the favorable global context.”
As the politics of social conservatism rises from Brazil to Hungary, Paraguayan lawmakers find great promise in fighting what they believe is a Western conspiracy to turn boys into gays.
Panic over foreign influence led to the collective trauma of the Triple Alliance War, which pitted Paraguay against Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and decimated more than half the population. Paraguay still has a habit of invoking the 1865-1870 conflict as happened last week.
“Paraguay is the perfect breeding ground for global conspiracies,” said Esteban Caballero, adviser to the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, a regional research group. “It’s not a group of fanatical fringes promoting this narrative, it’s a conservative community afraid of nonbinary identity. That means votes.”
Ahead of the 2023 parliamentary elections, the annual transfer of European Union funds to Paraguay’s Ministry of Education has put politicians into a galvanizing battle.
The election debate pivoted from Paraguay’s rampant corruption 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 crossed the House to allow authorities to withdraw EU funding, which actually supports anti-hunger initiatives.
As the controversy swirled, European diplomats held a ceremony to change the name of the agreement to “Strengthening Education” for fear of the word “transforming” causing offense. President Santiago Peña appeared in Paraguay’s largest evangelical church, promising religious leaders to increase their influence on the national education agenda.
“We are seeing stronger support than ever,” Pastor Ortigoza said. “There is greater sensitivity to our cause.”
