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Report Summary:

This report assesses the need for comprehensive sexuality education programs for youth in Egypt, highlighting significant gaps in knowledge and awareness. It draws on interviews with NGOs and literature reviews, providing policy recommendations to address these challenges. The findings underscore the urgent need for improved sexuality education to promote health and rights among Egyptian youth.

Context and Vulnerability:

With the advent of the 21st century, Egypt is experiencing rising public concern with the sexual and reproductive wellbeing and bodily integrity of Egyptians. This concern is manifested in ongoing efforts by the government and civil society to promote family planning information and services, improve maternal health and put an end to female genital mutilation (FGM).

There is, moreover, increased concern with violence against women on the streets and in the private sphere, the preponderance of different forms of illegal and precarious marriage contracts, such as early, forced and unregistered ‘urfi marriages among youth, and the sexual and reproductive health of engaged and newly married couples.

Young people, in general, and girls, in particular, are in a particularly vulnerable position. Not only do adolescents and young adults represent the largest cohort group in the population, they are at higher risk than any other group for incursions on their sexual and reproductive health and rights (Dejong, 2007). FGM, early marriage, sexual violence, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancies are but a few of the most salient threats to the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents and young people in Egypt. Concurrently, they are the least informed and the most under-served group with reproductive and sexual health and rights information and services in Egypt (Byers, 1998).

EIPR’s Approach and Objectives

Embracing the comprehensive approach to reproductive health that emerged in the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, the EIPR sought to address the need for comprehensive sexuality education among adolescents and young people for the attainment of reproductive and sexual health. Adopting a human rights-based approach, in this report we focus on adolescent and young people’s “right to education and information to comprehensive sexuality education necessary and useful to exercise full citizenship and equality in the private, public and political domains” (IPPF, 2008). We recognize that the sexual and reproductive wellbeing and bodily integrity of Egyptians is premised upon a comprehensive understanding of human sexuality that exposes the links between the various issues affecting the sexual and reproductive health of Egyptians.

This report aims to establish the following:

1. The violation of the right of adolescents and youth to reproductive and sexual health services and information in Egypt must end.

2. Egyptian policy and law does not guarantee comprehensive sexuality education to youth.

3. Challenges in the implementation of available sexuality education in Egypt include, but are not limited to linguistic problems in naming sexuality education and the negative connotations of the term, accessibility and social resistance.

4. Limitations to the effectiveness of available sexuality education pertain to the absence of a nationally representative needs assessment on youth sexuality as well as limitations in the approach, sustainability and accessibility of available initiatives and to the preparedness of educators.

5. There is a growing body of stakeholders (health, education, development, family planning and religious institutions) calling for increased national efforts at raising youth awareness on matters related to human sexuality.

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