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Condoms can't be trusted and boys don't cry in Catholic Paraguay's first sex ed program

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Condoms can't be trusted and boys don't cry in Catholic Paraguay's first sex ed program
News

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Condoms can't be trusted and boys don't cry in Catholic Paraguay's first sex ed program

2024-09-03 15:52 Last Updated At:16:00

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 Catholic 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.

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Teenage women hold their babies before attending Mass at the Catholic shelter for young mothers, Casa Rosa Maria, in Asuncion, Paraguay, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. Abortion is punishable by prison time with no exemptions in Paraguay, which has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in South America. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Teenage women hold their babies before attending Mass at the Catholic shelter for young mothers, Casa Rosa Maria, in Asuncion, Paraguay, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. Abortion is punishable by prison time with no exemptions in Paraguay, which has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in South America. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Eighth graders take notes during a geography class at the Nueva Asuncion public school in Chaco-i, Paraguay, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. Paraguay seeks to roll out its first national sex-ed curriculum in September 2024. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Eighth graders take notes during a geography class at the Nueva Asuncion public school in Chaco-i, Paraguay, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. Paraguay seeks to roll out its first national sex-ed curriculum in September 2024. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Eighth graders take notes during a geography class at the Nueva Asuncion public school in Chaco-i, Paraguay, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. Paraguay seeks to roll out its first national sex-ed curriculum in September 2024. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Eighth graders take notes during a geography class at the Nueva Asuncion public school in Chaco-i, Paraguay, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. Paraguay seeks to roll out its first national sex-ed curriculum in September 2024. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Diana Zalazar, 39, shows a photo of her with her son Ato at her home in Lambare, Paraguay, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. Zalazar said she got pregnant after having sex with her first partner when she was 14 years old but that no one had talked to her about the risks of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Diana Zalazar, 39, shows a photo of her with her son Ato at her home in Lambare, Paraguay, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. Zalazar said she got pregnant after having sex with her first partner when she was 14 years old but that no one had talked to her about the risks of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Diana Zalazar and her son Ato Martino pose for a portrait at their home in Asuncion, Paraguay, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. Zalazar said she got pregnant after having sex with her first partner when she was 14 years old but that no one had talked to her about the risks of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Diana Zalazar and her son Ato Martino pose for a portrait at their home in Asuncion, Paraguay, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. Zalazar said she got pregnant after having sex with her first partner when she was 14 years old but that no one had talked to her about the risks of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

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

In Catholic Paraguay, 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 sex 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 sexual ignorance and shame to raising her 23-year-old son and advocating for children's rights, Paraguay's lack of sex education has remained unchanged — until now. For the first time, the Ministry of Education has endorsed a national sex ed curriculum. But in a surprising twist, it's the sexual health educators and feminists who are panicked. Conservative lobbyists are thrilled.

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

“We have a very strong Judeo-Christian 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 Bible study for former President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

As a new generation of activists campaigning for legal abortion and gay rights scores victories across Latin America, a conservative backlash has gathered in Paraguay. The country already has among the world’s strictest abortion laws — punishable by prison time even in cases of incest or rape, though not when the mother’s life is in danger.

“Laws everywhere now allow girls to kill their babies, but Paraguay is among the remaining few saying no for Jesus’ sake,” 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 infants on their hips.

Critics explain the outsized power of Paraguay’s right-wing pressure groups as the consequence of a peculiar history. The conservative Colorado party has ruled the country for 76 of the past 80 years — including during a dictatorship openly sympathetic to Adolf Hitler.

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

In 2017, Paraguay became the first country to ban school discussions about gender identity, an unwitting trailblazer for European populists and Republican governors. Now its sex 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. Parents' rights groups 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,” “girls have smaller and lighter brains,” “boys don't cry easily,” “girls don't like taking risks."

Masturbation, it says, causes "frustration and isolation." Marital love lasts forever. Girls 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 sex is about the heterosexual 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 sex work in a country where transgender identity is not legally recognized, there’s no legislation recognizing hate crimes 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 sexual assault 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 raped 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 Latin 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 Brazil to Hungary, Paraguayan lawmakers have found immense promise in agitating against what they hold is a Western conspiracy to feminize boys and make girls gay.

Panic over foreign influence 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 Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, a regional research group. “It’s not a fringe group of fanatics promoting this narrative, it’s a conservative society terrified by nonbinary identities. That means votes.”

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

Electoral 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 swept through the lower house ordering authorities to repeal EU funds, which in reality support anti-hunger initiatives.

As controversy swirled, European diplomats held a ceremony to change the agreement's name to “Strengthening Education” for fear the word “transforming” caused offense. President Santiago Peña appeared at Paraguay's biggest evangelical church, 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."

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Teenage women hold their babies before attending Mass at the Catholic shelter for young mothers, Casa Rosa Maria, in Asuncion, Paraguay, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. Abortion is punishable by prison time with no exemptions in Paraguay, which has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in South America. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Teenage women hold their babies before attending Mass at the Catholic shelter for young mothers, Casa Rosa Maria, in Asuncion, Paraguay, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. Abortion is punishable by prison time with no exemptions in Paraguay, which has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in South America. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Eighth graders take notes during a geography class at the Nueva Asuncion public school in Chaco-i, Paraguay, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. Paraguay seeks to roll out its first national sex-ed curriculum in September 2024. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Eighth graders take notes during a geography class at the Nueva Asuncion public school in Chaco-i, Paraguay, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. Paraguay seeks to roll out its first national sex-ed curriculum in September 2024. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Eighth graders take notes during a geography class at the Nueva Asuncion public school in Chaco-i, Paraguay, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. Paraguay seeks to roll out its first national sex-ed curriculum in September 2024. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Eighth graders take notes during a geography class at the Nueva Asuncion public school in Chaco-i, Paraguay, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. Paraguay seeks to roll out its first national sex-ed curriculum in September 2024. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Diana Zalazar, 39, shows a photo of her with her son Ato at her home in Lambare, Paraguay, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. Zalazar said she got pregnant after having sex with her first partner when she was 14 years old but that no one had talked to her about the risks of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Diana Zalazar, 39, shows a photo of her with her son Ato at her home in Lambare, Paraguay, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. Zalazar said she got pregnant after having sex with her first partner when she was 14 years old but that no one had talked to her about the risks of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Diana Zalazar and her son Ato Martino pose for a portrait at their home in Asuncion, Paraguay, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. Zalazar said she got pregnant after having sex with her first partner when she was 14 years old but that no one had talked to her about the risks of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

Diana Zalazar and her son Ato Martino pose for a portrait at their home in Asuncion, Paraguay, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. Zalazar said she got pregnant after having sex with her first partner when she was 14 years old but that no one had talked to her about the risks of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday directing the United States to again withdraw from the landmark Paris climate agreement, dealing a blow to worldwide efforts to combat global warming and once again distancing the U.S. from its closest allies.

Trump's action, hours after he was sworn in to a second term, echoed his directive in 2017, when he announced that the U.S. would abandon the global Paris accord. The pact is aimed at limiting long-term global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels or, failing that, keeping temperatures at least well below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels.

Trump also signed a letter to the United Nations indicating his intention to withdraw from the 2015 agreement, which allows nations to provide targets to cut their own emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Those targets are supposed to become more stringent over time, with countries facing a February 2025 deadline for new individual plans. The outgoing Biden administration last month offered a plan to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60% by 2035.

Trump's order says the Paris accord is among a number of international agreements that don't reflect U.S. values and “steer American taxpayer dollars to countries that do not require, or merit, financial assistance in the interests of the American people."

Instead of joining a global agreement, “the United States’ successful track record of advancing both economic and environmental objectives should be a model for other countries,'' Trump said.

Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and a key architect of the Paris accord, called the planned U.S. withdrawal unfortunate but said action to slow climate change “is stronger than any single country’s politics and policies."

The global context for Trump's action is “very different to 2017,'' Tubiana said Monday, adding that “there is unstoppable economic momentum behind the global transition, which the U.S has gained from and led but now risks forfeiting."

The International Energy Agency expects the global market for key clean energy technologies to triple to more than $2 trillion by 2035, she said.

“The impacts of the climate crisis are also worsening. The terrible wildfires in Los Angeles are the latest reminder that Americans, like everyone else, are affected by worsening climate change,” Tubiana said.

Gina McCarthy, who served as White House climate adviser under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said that if Trump, a Republican, “truly wants America to lead the global economy, become energy independent and create good-paying American jobs," then he must “stay focused on growing our clean energy industry. Clean technologies are driving down energy costs for people all across our country."

The world is now long-term 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 degrees Celsius) above mid-1800s temperatures. Most but not all climate monitoring agencies said global temperatures last year passed the warming mark of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, and all said it was the warmest year on record.

The withdrawal process from the Paris accord takes one year. Trump’s previous withdrawal took effect the day after the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Biden.

While the first Trump-led withdrawal from the landmark U.N. agreement — adopted by 196 nations — shocked and angered nations across the globe, “not a single country followed the U.S. out the door,” said Alden Meyer, a longtime climate negotiations analyst with the European think tank E3G.

Instead, other nations renewed their commitment to slowing climate change, along with investors, businesses, governors, mayors and others in the U.S., Meyer and other experts said.

Still, they lamented the loss of U.S. leadership in global efforts to slow climate change, even as the world is on track to set yet another record hot year and has been lurching from drought to hurricane to flood to wildfire.

“Clearly America is not going to play the commanding role in helping solve the climate crisis, the greatest dilemma humans have ever encountered,″ said climate activist and writer Bill McKibben. “For the next few years the best we can hope is that Washington won’t manage to wreck the efforts of others.”

About half of Americans “somewhat” or “strongly” oppose U.S. action to withdraw from the climate accord, and even Republicans aren’t overwhelmingly in favor, according according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults “somewhat” or “strongly” in favor of withdrawing from the Paris agreement, while about one-quarter are neutral.

Much of the opposition to U.S. withdrawal comes from Democrats, but Republicans display some ambivalence as well. Slightly less than half of Republicans are in favor of withdrawing from the climate accord, while about 2 in 10 are opposed.

China several years ago passed the United States as the world's largest annual carbon dioxide emitting nation. The U.S. — the second biggest annual carbon polluting country — put 4.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in the air in 2023, down 11% from a decade earlier, according to the scientists who track emissions for the Global Carbon Project.

But carbon dioxide lasts in the atmosphere for centuries, so the United States has put more of the heat-trapping gas that is now in the air than any other nation. The U.S. is responsible for nearly 22% of the carbon dioxide put in the atmosphere since 1950, according to Global Carbon Project.

While global efforts to fight climate change continued during Trump's first term, many experts worry that a second Trump term will be more damaging, with the United States withdrawing even further from climate efforts in a way that could cripple future presidents’ efforts. With Trump, who has dismissed climate change, in charge of the world’s leading economy, those experts fear other countries, especially China, could use it as an excuse to ease off their own efforts to curb carbon emissions.

Simon Stiell, the U.N. climate change executive secretary, held out hope that the U.S. would continue to embrace the global clean energy boom.

“Ignoring it only sends all that vast wealth to competitor economies, while climate disasters like droughts, wildfires and superstorms keep getting worse," Stiell said. “The door remains open to the Paris Agreement, and we welcome constructive engagement from any and all countries.”

Associated Press writer Linley Sanders contributed to this report.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

AES Indiana Petersburg Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant, operates in Petersburg, Ind., on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

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FILE - Wind turbines stretch across the horizon at dusk at the Spearville Wind Farm, Sept. 29, 2024, near Spearville, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

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