Catholic Entity in Africa’s Caution to UN Ahead of 2021 International Day of Families

Referencing this theme, CitizenGo officials in Africa express their concerns about technologically advanced CSE program. 

They say, “The kind of CSE that is being pushed globally is readily available through the technologically advanced ‘World Starts With Me’ curriculum, which beats the logic of even celebrating technology as it is being used to destroy our children.”

“World Starts With Me” is a computer-based CSE program available on compact disks and the Internet. It targets young people between 12 and 19 years of age. 

The officials of the Catholic entity in Africa add that in light with this year’s IDF theme, the UN leadership needs “to stop using technology to sexualize our children and break our families.”

CSE has been rejected in different African nations including Ghana where Catholic Bishops described the curriculum as “a subtle way to introduce homosexuality to school-going children.”

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In May 2020, Catholic Bishops in Kenya  spearheaded an online campaign against the CSE saying that “it is so dirty that if we go that way, we are going to destroy the moral fiber of our country.” 

In an interview with ACI Africa, Bishop Paul Kariuki of Kenya’s Embu Diocese said that members of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) are “totally opposed to CSE.”

The Bishop who heads the Commission for Education of KCCB cautioned against the program saying that if it is included in Kenya’s education curriculum, it “will bring in lesbians, gays and that is going to destroy our country.”

Religious leaders in Kenya had opposed the introduction of CSE syllabus in 2018.  

In the May 9 petition, CitizenGo officials note that besides the CSE, the UN “has been used by anti-life and anti-family activists to push for agreements, programs of action and even policies that threaten the very core institution in the society – the family.”

They explain that the UN has done this through various conferences that include “the Commission on the Status of Women, the Commission on Population and Development, the International Conference on Population and Development.”

In their petition, CitizenGo officials urge the UN Secretary General to use the IDF “to defend the family instead of pushing for its deterioration.”

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.