Let's Talk About Sex

Bowie Lam, founder and executive director of Teen's Key, and Siti Aishah Hassan Hasri, founder of Spot Community Project, Front & Female Awards winners in Hong Kong and Malaysia respectively, discuss sex education and stigma

- Rachel Duffell

When Siti Aishah Hassan Hasri takes her sexuality education programmes into Malaysia’s primary schools, it’s not unusual to hear classrooms full of nine-year-olds screaming out the words “vagina”, “vulva” and “penis”. This is part of her mission to remove the embarrassment and stigma that surround sex education. As she takes her programme up through different age groups, she will run through different scenarios; for example, what should a girl do when a partner refuses to put on a condom? 

The programmes are delivered through her organisation Spot Community Project, which she launched in Malaysia in 2015. Although Malaysia’s Ministry of Education has officially had a sex education programme since 1982, it has been limited to biological and religious studies. Hassan Hasri put together her own programme based on key lessons and best practices from around the world that began with a menstruation centric programme focused on girls, before expanding to tackle a broad range of areas to educate both boys and girls: from relationships and rights to understanding gender, violence and staying safe; skills for health and well-being, including body image and self-care; and the human body and development, including puberty and reproductive health. Since its inception, Spot Community Project has reached more than 30,000 young people. 

“Sexuality education is something that is lacking because, especially in Malaysia, we all live in a direct result of the lack of sexuality education. There’s still unwanted pregnancy, there are still baby-dumping cases and there is still infanticide happening. And girls are still blamed for all this and boys are still spared,” says Hassan Hasri.