The advance of women’s rights: Accessing sexual education in Latin America

• In Event: Fighting the good fight: the struggle to advance minority rights in Latin America

Abstract

During the last twenty years, governments in Latin America adopted policies aimed at improving gender equality, particularly with respect to issues such as women’s political representation and gender violence. On other issues, they achieved a mixed record. This paper focuses on the issue of access to reproductive education. Due to a combination of activism and global pressure, during the nineties most governments in the region incorporated sexual education in their education curricula. However, during the last fifteen years the region experienced a strong backlash. What accounts for these two moments? This paper is aimed at answering this question by contrasting the strategies advanced by advocates of women’s rights and religious and conservative groups.

Author

• Paola C Fajardo-Heyward, Canisius College