Fieldwork of the Comprehensive Sexuality Education in the West Nusa Tenggara Barad Province, Lombok Islands, Indonesia

Reporting day: 2022/09/27 (Year)(Month)(Day)
Reporter: Fumiko Shibuya (Ph.D. course student, Graduate School of Health Sciences,
University of the Ryukyu)

Prof. Jun Kobayashi and I conducted the fieldwork on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in the West Nusa Tenggara Barad Province, Lombok Island, Indonesia, with the support of research partners at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Mataram.

Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE), which was promoted by UNESCO, aims to help young people make responsible choices, develop appropriate sexual behavior, and acquire appropriate scientific knowledge and skills based on life cycle and culture. It means comprehensive education that includes not only education about sexual development and pregnancy, but also gender, child rights, diversity, human relations, and prevention of sexual violence (UNESCO, International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education).

In the middle of August, we visited the Regional Office of Health, Regional Office of Education, Teacher Training, Faculty of Education, University of Mataram, one public senior high school, and the International NGOs to collect information that is relevant to the CSE in the West Nusa Tenggara Barad Province. It was shown that the increases in child marriage and early pregnancy were cited as health issues among adolescents at each of the sites visited.
In addition, it seems to be quite serious that child marriage was still increasing further during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I suppose that the significance of disseminating the CSE in this province is to prevent child marriage and early pregnancy among adolescents. To solve these adolescent health issues, it might be necessary to have a system of cooperation between both institutions of health and education, and an approach by the private sectors such as the International NGOs. Thus, we are planning to conduct further research to solve adolescent health issues in this region with our research partners from the University of Mataram.