“Mom, what do a boy and a girl do besides kiss?”
The nine-year-old girl’s question caught her mother, Mirela Jonić, by surprise.
“It took me a few minutes to answer her.”
“I was momentarily confused and realized that he was maturing faster and that it was time for certain topics,” this Zagreb native tells BBC Serbian.
The announcement by the city authorities in Zagreb that sex education could be a subject in school made her happy.
“Children are already talking about it among themselves, because there is so much content on the Internet and no matter how much you control it, you can’t completely prevent this content from reaching them.”
“It’s important that children know and should talk about it at school,” adds Mirela.
The introduction of sex education in schools in Croatia has been a subject of debate for decades.
After the announcement by the Zagreb authorities of their intention to include health and sexual education in the school curriculum as an elective subject, was indignant is the archdiocese there, saying the content is “unacceptable for Catholics.”
The church plays an important role in Croatia, where, according to the latest census, from 2022 More than 78 percent of the population declared themselves Catholic.
It is precisely because of pressure from the Catholic Church that abortion in Croatia is becoming less available every year, even though it is legal.
“Wherever the church is strong, there are no freedoms of any kind, especially not sexual freedoms,” points out Tanja Tabački.
Sex lessons in practice
The capital of Croatia wants to continue on the path begun by the authorities in the coastal city of Rijeka.
Sex education has been introduced as a pilot project in six schools there, and could be expanded to others.
“Local politics took the helm and decided to inform children about sexuality and new social phenomena in line with the 21st century,” the city authorities said.
Healthy lifestyle, prevention of addiction to excessive use of mobile phones and gambling, mental health, sexual and reproductive health – these are some of the topics that would be covered in the new subject classes in Zagreb schools.
Imaginary As an elective subject, it is intended for students from fifth to eighth grade of elementary school, when interest in reproductive health increases as they enter puberty.
In the lower grades, more would be taught about hygiene, safety, and healthy habits, while puberty, interpersonal relationships, sexual health, prevention, and mental health would be discussed later.
Psychologists, pedagogues or social pedagogues would talk to the students.
“Girls and boys are exposed to explicit sexual content as early as ten years old, so the topic of sexuality should be discussed with them, not kept quiet.”
“And this should be talked about in school and in the family, she stated Tanja Jurin, a psychologist who has been working on sexuality for over a decade.
She participates in the development of the health education curriculum.
“We are exposed to very strong public and political attacks.”
“That’s why we have jointly decided not to spread the story or make individual statements in the media at this stage,” she said briefly in a written response to the BBC in Serbian.
‘Sex is still a taboo topic’
Mirela thought for a long time about how to talk to her daughter about sexuality.
“Children are entering puberty earlier and earlier, and we need to keep up with that.”
“That’s why I decided to speak openly, but in an age-appropriate way,” she says.
Her position is shared by many fellow citizens, at least according to the latest research by the Center for Education, Counseling and Research (CESI) from 2021.
More than three-quarters of respondents believe that comprehensive sex education should be introduced in schools, and more than 72 percent of them are in favor of making it a mandatory subject.
Nine out of ten respondents claims that the state is obliged to provide children and young people with access to information, education and services related to the protection of their reproductive and sexual health.
However, many of Mirela’s friends still shy away from this topic and avoid talking to their children.
“Unfortunately, whether we want to admit it or not, sex is still a taboo topic in our country, which is devastating, because we live in the 21st century,” she adds disappointedly.
Archdiocese: ‘Inappropriate’
Health education is important for the development of every child, say the Archdiocese of Zagreb, but they claim that the proposed idea has several controversial points.
They call on believers to not accept the introduction of ideological determinants, especially ‘gender ideology’, which, as they state, is inappropriate for healthy development and is contrary not only to Christian, but also to human values.
The Church suspects that behind the noble notions of children’s health and well-being lie other intentions or are part of a process of manipulation.
“Instead of serving the good, most often perfidiously, completely inappropriately and irresponsibly, children’s privacy is entered into at an age when it is not difficult to sow seeds of ambiguity that do not contribute to upbringing but are attempts to re-educate children, leading to the violation of identity and serious endangerment of the health of children and young people.”
“This not only refers to recognizing and accepting one’s own sexual identity and living in accordance with it, but also to responsible sexual behavior among young people,” they said in a statement.
Some politicians also oppose teaching reproductive education.
“Children must not be guinea pigs for ideological experiments in schools,” he/she/it has developed Tomislav Sokol, Croatian representative in the European Parliament, from the ruling Croatian Democratic Union party.
He warned of potential “political and ideological shaping of content.”
“If religious education is an elective subject, I don’t see why it would be a problem for children to learn about sex in schools,” Mirela points out.
‘No one can tell them’
Students in schools in Serbia do not have sex education on their schedules either, although there have been such initiatives.
Elementary school students from fifth to eighth grade in Vojvodina, in northern Serbia, once had workshops on sex education, but the project was discontinued about ten years ago.
In addition to individual lessons with students and teachers, parents also participated in the workshops, says Tanja Tabački, founder of the Skaska association and one of the organizers of the initiative.
They talked about their first kiss, pimples, and would open the topics with illustrations by Dobrosav Bob Živković in Jasminka Petrović’s book “Sex for Beginners”.
They were skeptical at first, but the interest was actually greater than expected.
He still remembers the boy who waited for them for more than 45 minutes with a bunch of questions written on A4 paper.
“There’s simply no one to tell them. Parents of children who live in the countryside are too busy with physical labor, and they also have the desire and will, which we were convinced of during the workshops.”
“I remember one mother, a pharmacist, who got involved and explained to her children what a birth control pill was and what a condom was,” says Tabački.
He also remembers a music teacher about to retire who was full of fear and trembling, and who surprised his colleagues when he talked about his first love at a workshop.
“For example, religious education teachers didn’t come, but we didn’t have any major problems,” adds Tabački.
How is it in other Balkan countries?
Learning about sex is a taboo topic even when you cross the borders of Croatia and Serbia.
There have been several initiatives in Montenegro, but they have been unsuccessful, although research shows that both students and parents believe that such topics should be discussed in school.
The authorities justify this by saying that the number of classes is full and that there are not enough teaching staff, and that these topics are certainly covered through other regular and elective courses.
The position of previous decision-makers has remained unchanged – there is no place for sex education in the curriculum, they said from the non-governmental organization Juventas, which has repeatedly launched the initiative to introduce this subject as mandatory.
North Macedonia may be at the bottom of the list when it comes to living standards, but it could be at the top when it comes to reproductive health education.
By 2026 at the latest, sex education should be among the 12 elective subjects that students can study if they want, and with parental consent, announced the country’s top officials.
The pilot project was launched in 2020, with the aim of teaching about gender, sexual and reproductive health, relationships, and the body in all primary schools in this small Balkan country, he said then President Stevo Pendarovski.
Young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) also want to learn about sex, according to a survey by the association. ProEduca of 2024..
More than 76 percent of high school students are in favor of introducing sex education into the curriculum.
In elementary schools, that figure is lower – about a third of students, mostly girls, would like to learn about it.
We wanted to use this research to encourage the authorities in BiH to start thinking about sex education for young people, the authors said.
And the question from the beginning of the text did not remain unanswered.
“After kissing, they hold hands and hug, because they are still little,” was Mirela’s answer.
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