Dr. Anthony Okeregbe and Dr. Serawit Debele
Abstract
- Abstract
- Cluster fellow Dr. Anthony Okeregbe talks with his host Dr. Serawit Debele, leader of the Cluster's Junior Research Group on Intersectionality, about his recent project entitled "The Child’s Right to ‘Sex’: Negotiating Sexuality Pedagogies in Entangled Moral Spaces".
Description
- Transcript
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Sarah Ait-Belkacem: Cluster Conversations, a podcast by Africa Multiple.
Sarah Ait-Belkacem: Hello, hi everyone, good afternoon, uh or depending where you are joining us from today, good morning, good evening. My name is Sarah Ait-Belkacem, I am a junior research group leader here at the Africa Multiple cluster of excellence, University of Bayreuth. Today I am joined by my colleague from the University of Lagos, Anthony Okereke, who is a philosopher and also a member of the cluster at the ACC Unilag. We're going to talk a little about the work he does here as a fellow of the Bayreuth Academy, part of the cluster, and I'm a proud host of Anthony's. And yeah, I'm going to invite you to say, you know, a few words about you and what you are working on currently and yeah.
Anthony Okereke: Yeah, thank you very much, Sarah. I'm Anthony, as Sarah Ait-Belkacem just stated. I'm glad to be at the University of Bayreuth. Yeah, I am here on a two-month fellowship granted by the African Cluster Center, University of Bayreuth, for two months, as I said. And I'm working on a project and the title of my project is Children's Moral Feelings About Sex and Wellbeing in the Light of the Child Rights Act and Entangled Sexuality Pedagogies. So that is what I'm working on. And I've been gracious to be handled by Sarah Ait-Belkacem, my able host.
Sarah Ait-Belkacem: Um, yeah, thank you very much, Anthony. Uh, I mean, you just touched on the topic that connected the two of us because my work also focuses on an aspect of sexuality and, um, of course gender relations on the African continent. Although I'm not focusing on Nigeria, I look at Ethiopia, Sudan and Tunisia together with my research team. So that's what attracted me to, um, you know, work with you and to host you here. And after having listened to you a couple of times, I have realized it's the right decision that I made. But, um, I think I'd like to maybe to invite you to say a bit more about what it is that you are, you know, talking about when you say sexual sexuality pedagogy and how it's related with, you know, morality, the question of morality in relation to children's sexuality and their wellbeing. How are these things connected and what are you trying to, you know, give us as an output of your current research?
Anthony Okereke: Okay, thank you very much, Sarah. Two things motivated me, as I stated in my presentation. Two things motivated this project. One was the moral anxiety that arose from a workshop I attended in which one of the presenters, who happened to be a former UN worker, Sharon Slaughter is her name, she spoke about the hypersexualization of African children by comprehensive sexuality education, CSE. So, and then she talked about tools being sent, being presented, being introduced to Africans and these tools sexualizes them, the tools sexualize them rather, and somehow they feel, she feels that is morally wrong. That is one. Then the second motivation came from a narrative of a colleague of mine whose son was in England. And then, as I said at the presentation, the son went to school riding his sister's bicycle, pink. And when he got there, the boys just accosted him and said, oh come on, Tokes, so you are gay. And the guy took offense. So his taking offense led the principal to summon the parents and they were chastised for bringing up somebody who does not have a sense of inclusion. So I think these two motivated me to ask, what really, how do Nigerian children, how do they see sexuality? And you know, we have what we call the Child Right Act in Nigeria, which talks about the rights that children have. Even though the Child Right Act does not spell out privileges relating to sexuality and things like that, they are implicit in those acts, are things that could interpret such sexual orientation and preferences. So I felt I should ask children.
Speaker 1: What do you think about the sexuality pedagogies? So at the end of it all, I found out there are two kinds of sexuality pedagogies struggling, struggling over the soul of our children. One is the one presented by the United Nations titled comprehensive sexuality education, and then the other by people who create this moral anxiety and claim that children are being sexualized, and so they come up with their own sexuality education. And more often, I think these people are faith-based organizations. So those are the two motivations. So I decided to carry out a study, a pilot study.
Speaker 2: I mean, a lot of interesting points you are raising here. Maybe we don't have enough time to go through all of them, although I have some questions. But it looks like you have spoken to the children to see what they think about all of these. And so, what are the main points that the children who spoke to you pointed out in relation to sex education, for example, in relation to them trying to reconcile this tension between two different educations, like the education that's coming from the UN, the comprehensive sex education, but then there is like hardcore conservative faith-based institutions pushing a certain kind of ideology? So what do the children say? And who are we talking about when we say children? Like which age group?
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you very much. I think the anthropologist in you is coming out. Yeah, I went to, as I said, this is a pilot study, and I wanted to make it bigger, but I felt the time constraints. So I picked just a school. I picked a school at the University of Lagos, secondary school. And I chose Lagos because of the cosmopolitan nature of Lagos, and the fact that the school is a co-education school, has both boys and girls, and it's also multi-religious, has okay, yeah, different faiths, then also different ethnic groups. So I felt it was an appropriate sample to use. So I sent questionnaires, about 120 questionnaires, out of which seven returned. Sorry, 72 returned. Out of the 72, I picked out 12 people for interview, 12 people for interview, six from senior secondary, and six from junior secondary. And they raised questions about sexuality education. I said, okay, look, apart from the questionnaire, which asked questions about their sex, I mean their sex, their age, their religion, and then whether they are exposed to sexualization tools as claimed by slaughter, apart from those questions, I asked them open-ended questions. Like, for example, one of them was, how would you feel when you find yourself in a situation where you have young people that are homosexuals, that are gay? I asked such questions. I also asked questions like, how would you feel when you find yourself in a school where boys and girls are dating, are dating? So things like dating. So I was not able to ask questions like abstinence because already the low turnout in the questionnaire suggested that I was going beyond bounds. Yeah, so some people did not participate because they don't think children should be asked such questions. So I didn't ask about abstinence. I looked about interaction. How do you feel when you find yourself in a gathering where young people are falling in love? What is your reaction? How do you feel when you find yourself in a situation where you have schoolchildren who are gay and they are...
Speaker 1: They're interacting or they fall in love. How would you think how how would you find them? How would you find yourself in that kind of situation? So these were the questions I asked and already studies have been done. There have been some studies about sexuality in African Nigerian schools. There have been a lot of studies, studies that have looked about that have talked about different forms, that have looked at teacher education, that have looked at also the practice of gazing, lesbianism. There have been studies like that. But I wanted to see how the children feel about even if whether this study supports what already has been passed across. So, but surprisingly enough, the responses I got were very negative. Negative in that the children were very hostile and inhospitable towards other sexualities. Although many of them were not used to sexualization tools, they were privy to cartoons. Cartoons because I asked questions like that. Cartoons, animes and movies that express or display same sex for children. So when I asked them about their feelings about it, there was an expression of disgust. Disgust, negativity. Some said it is evil. One somebody said it is evil. Another said it is disappointing that she had to watch this. Some other people even demonized younger ones who are in same-sex relationship. Not only that, who are also dating. So people did not even want some of them did not want to have anything to do with such people because of the fear of being influenced by such people. So and for me it was quite surprising. I thought with the kind of studies that have been done and the exposure that children have, the responses would be different. They would somehow validate some earlier studies that have been done. But as I said, this is this is a pilot study and perhaps too, there might be some other reasons why they responded that way.
Speaker 2: So what yeah talking of some other reasons, for example, if we indulge in some speculation here, what do you think are those reasons that make these young children hostile towards non-normative sexual practices or relationships and you know in order to you know create an environment, an inclusive environment which I think you are interested in exploring. What can be what can be done? How can for example we use education or whatever is available to you know create some awareness among young students such as the ones you interviewed to you know think about a possibility to exist without being hostile towards others who are different from us and also for other groups to you know be able to exist without having to be self-conscious and you know being subjected to various forms of violence. And so in relation to that for example, is there you know some kind of indigenous knowledge that we can draw on to imagine a better environment?
Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah thank you very much. I think the reason I suppose that happens is this. Nigeria claims to be a religious multi-religious society in practice, even though the constitution says it is a secular country. So and then this has raised its head in so many things, so many other areas. But in sexuality education, sexuality pedagogy, it is very very dominant. It's a prevalent issue there. Because you have faith-based organizations who think that because indigenous societies or indigenous African societies do not really talk about sexuality or sex, let me use the word sex, to children or around children because it is a taboo, any agency that tries to bring up...
Speaker 1: matters relating to that, that tries to create some kind of awareness for children about their sexuality is looked at with some kind of suspicion. So I think that is what has happened. So there's a combination therefore of faith-based organizations that look at that area as immoral and indigenous African society that see it as a taboo for children to be involved in sexuality and sex matters. I say I think those are the two things. But beyond that, for me, I think it is the, I am also concerned about the space management, the moral space. The moral space. That is my concern again as a philosopher, the moral space. What kind of moral space should we exist in? That's the thing. So how do we manage our moral space? Is morals, is our moral space reduced to a religious space? In other words, let me reframe the question by asking, is everything morality religious? That's the question. So I don't think that is the case. Morality is more than religion. Religion is one of the tools by which we can understand morality. We can understand the sense of right and wrong. Culture is there, tradition is there, even the society is there. So I think these are the things that we should aggregate and try to see how we can manage these spaces. So two things. One, the culture, the indigenous society and the suspicion regarding sex and sexuality. And two, the log aheads, the context between these two agencies pursuing these different sexuality pedagogies, meaning those of the United Nations Population Fund that promotes comprehensive sexuality education and then faith-based organization that look at strict heterosexual monogamous, marriage-oriented kind of sexuality. I think the tension between those and then our indigenous societies are the causes for this, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, talk. I mean, I think some of the societal anxiety is understandable in the sense that, you know, when they look at the comprehensive sex education, they think, ah, this is yet another Western imposition and they're trying to push an agenda on us. You know, there is a historical ground also for that, you know, pushback and anxiety against that. But is there a way, can you imagine, for example, that there might be a way to indigenize and contextualize this comprehensive sex education in such a way that it doesn't feel like it's an imposition from outside, it doesn't speak to the context, but it can be appropriated in a manner that kind of is resonant with the context and speaks to the realities of, you know, children growing up in Nigeria and then so they can, because we can't deny the fact that there is the need to also have sex education, right? I think that, but what can be done to kind of redefine and appropriate this comprehensive sex education that's being pumped down from the UN so that it's like conversant with the experience, context and practices of, you know, Nigeria or any other context? And how can your work, for example, contribute to bringing about that kind of change?
Speaker 1: I think this is a very personal question. It's now beyond the research. Okay, but let me, I do not hold strictly to the postulations of the agents of comprehensive sexuality education and also do not hold strictly to all the postulations of people pursuing this, what they call it, this other, yeah, the religious faith-based one. I am looking at rights. I'm looking at inclusion. I'm looking at empowerment. Now, empowerment around where, empowerment around children, empowerment around women, empowerment around the girl child. Yeah. So those are the things I'm looking out for. And they are entitlements. They are legitimate entitlements of these people because as the Child Rights Act states, these are human beings too. They are part and parcel of society. Fifty-six percent of children, I mean, of the population in Africa are people within that bracket. So, I want to pick the aspect of comprehensive sex...
Speaker 1: A sexuality education that speaks to the kind of thing I have in mind. And what is that? It is about gender issue. Africa has been, has been on the bad side really when it comes to promotion of of gender issues there because perhaps this is the hangover of of the patriarchal kind of culture that dominates the continent. And secondly they've also seen children even though you have this child rights act, they are under the supervision of adults. Everything in the child rights act there tells you under the supervision of a legal guardian or parent. So what have you been saying? There's nothing else. It has still been it is still the same thing. So I am looking at rights, gender issue. In Nigeria we have there is there is a prevalent the increasing rate of rape. Rape and sexual violence. Now how do we stop this without empowerment? So I'm picking the empowerment ingredients in the CSE as something that could be brought to the table. Then should people have to have they have to understand their right, they also have to have autonomy of their sexuality. The autonomy of their sexuality. The human the the girl child is not a property. The woman is not a property. So I am against any kind of sexuality pedagogy that tries to see the woman as a property. And that is what many of these faith-based positions hold. I mean if you look at them strictly and try to interpret them, you will see there the woman the girl child is put at the I mean the second fiddle. So I am I am against that kind of. These are human beings that have equal rights, have the same inviolable and inviability and intrinsic worth like every other person. So I pick out those aspects of of of of the CS and CSE bring it to the table and see how they can they you marry them with aspects of our culture. It is not every aspect of our culture that is that is that is degrading of women. So you pick out those aspects, marry them and then we are better off in society. I think that is the goal. So we are better able to manage our spaces and also disabuse our minds from the thinking that the moral space is controlled by religion or by taboos in culture.
Speaker 2: Um I think this is um in my view a wonderful note to um wrap up with. Uh um I really do look forward to uh the publication that will come out of your current project and uh hopefully uh those who have joined us in this conversation uh would also have the benefit of reading um the output eventually and I really do hope also that this work uh is read by people who are concerned about the issue um you know policymakers um and so um so yeah um again it's such a privilege to have been your your host and to um be involved in this conversation with with you. Thank you very much Anthony and thank you all for listening to us uh today and yeah till next time bye.
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- Title
- Dr. Anthony Okeregbe and Dr. Serawit Debele
- Language
- English
- Podcast series
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Cluster Conversations
- Date
- January 31, 2023
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- 23 minutes, 19 seconds
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