Recently, the National Administration of Public Education (ANEP) reinstated the Comprehensive Sexual Education Commission (ESI), universalizing throughout the national education system the constructivist and relativist epistemological approach, marked by feminist gender theories born during the second wave of feminism.
This imposition represents a deep change that affects the way sexuality is conceived in education, relegating the biological and scientific perspective to the background. This confusion is unacceptable: Sexual education is not the same as Comprehensive Sexual Education.
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Sexual education in Uruguay
For much of the twentieth century, sexual education was centered on a positivist, health-oriented, and normative perspective, aimed at disease prevention and the moral regulation of sexuality, as evidenced by initiatives such as the Clemente Estable Plan (1930-1970).
Previously, sexual education promoted by Paulina Luisi introduced an approach based on social hygiene and biological-eugenic morality.
This approach prevailed in the education system and in public policies until the end of the twentieth century, when sexual education began to be incorporated into international debates, with Uruguay's accession to the UN in 1945 as a founding member.
A turning point was the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, which promoted sexual education based on human rights, gender perspective, and the social construction of sexuality.
Is sexuality a right?
Uruguay has progressively incorporated the human rights agenda, including sexual rights, into its national policies.
The recognition of sexuality as a right began in the 1970s, driven mainly by the second wave feminist movement.
During the 1980s, the concept of sexual rights was consolidated in feminist, public health, and human rights circles, and was promoted by organizations such as WHO.
In 1994, in Cairo, sexual rights were formally recognized as essential human rights. This recognition was reaffirmed a year later at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.
