Sex education in India is a controversial topic. Here, an activist held a placard against sex education in schools on International Women’s Day in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, March 8, 2011.
Associated Press
“In India we don’t hesitate to have sex, but when we have to talk about it, it’s against our culture,” said Anju Kishinchandani, a sex educator who runs weekend workshops in Mumbai to get children, teenagers and their parents to talk about the birds and the bees.
In a country where conversations about sex are all but taboo, Ms. Kishinchandani offers one of a growing number of privately run programs that Indian parents send their children to instead of discussing the topic at home.
Mothers waiting for their daughters at one of Ms. Kishinchandani’s sessions in July for nine- to 12-year-old girls said talking to their children about sex made them feel uncomfortable. They preferred to have someone else broach the topic, the mothers said as they eyed the closed door behind which their daughters were learning about puberty in Juhu, a northwestern suburb of Mumbai.

“I haven’t brought it up… if she asks me something, I’ll answer, but I thought this would be a better way to introduce her” to sex, said one mother, referring to her 12-year-old daughter who was attending the workshop.
In India, 47% of girls are married before the age of 18, according to UNICEF, and 28.5% of women report a first birth before age 18, the United Nations Population Fund said in a 2013 report.
Despite this, sex education is not a part of the school curriculum in most parts of India. Last June, the then-health minister Harsh Vardhancame under fire from local media because of a statement on his website saying that “so-called ‘sex education’” in schools should be banned.
According to news reports, Dr. Vardhan later clarified that the statement referred to a 2007 Adolescence Education Program launched by the previous Congress-led government to provide students with better information about sexual and reproductive health.
The controversy the program generated led to its patchy implementation across Indian states, and most schools offer lessons in abstinence — or nothing at all — as the only form of sex education.
Sex education is being outsourced to non-profit or private organizations because the Indian government is “abdicating its responsibility,” said Ketaki Chowkhani, who is working on a doctorate in women’s studies about sex education in urban India at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
“It should be the responsibility of the school, and consequently the state, to provide comprehensive sexuality education,” said Ms. Chowkhani in an email.
Private schools that have sex education as part of the curriculum tend to call in someone else rather than leaving it to their teachers. “Students are more open with outsiders,” said Husein Burhani, academic director at Mumbai’s D.Y. Patil International School.
“Schools have counselors, but because it’s such a taboo topic in Indian culture, kids don’t want to talk about boyfriends with teachers,” said Shalaka Sisodia, who runs sexual awareness programs at several schools in Maharashtra.
Ms. Sisodia says that some topics, like menstruation, are no longer off-limits in many Indian homes, but reproduction still is. Many parents “are embarrassed and ashamed to talk about it at home,” she said.
Letting the parents know what their children are learning is a vital part of Ms. Sisodia’s program. The parents “thanked us for taking the pressure away,” she said.
But a handful of parents are apprehensive that sex is being discussed at all, said Ms. Sisodia. “They say ‘why do you need to show images?’ or ‘do you really need to provide this information at this age?’”
Other educators encounter similar problems. New Delhi-based sex educator Sushant Kalra says he started running weekend workshops to train parents on how to talk to their kids. When he followed up to ask if the parents had bitten the bullet, “not even one in ten parents had done it,” he said.
So Mr. Kalra split his program into two parts: at the first session he trains parents, and at the second, the parents are expected to bring their children and talk to them about sex in the presence of other families.
The parents “see everyone doing it and together they break the barriers,” he said.
“Parents initially say, ‘it’s not my job,’” says Mr. Kalra. He asks them, “Who do you want to be talking to your kids?”
For poor children whose parents may be uneducated, the silence around sex is even more dangerous.
“They live in little huts where they see sex and abuse all the time,” said Gulie Engineer, who runs a Mumbai-based non-profit to educate street children.
These children attend public schools that don’t teach sex education, said Ms. Engineer. She says she started a sex education program at her non-profit organization primarily to empower girls and teach boys how to respect women.
“Girls think sex is their duty whether they want to or not,” said Ms. Engineer. “They come from a harsh, rough background where it is a done thing to abuse a woman,” she said.
Since the December 2012 gang rape and murder of a young student in New Delhi, conversations about sexuality have focused on harassment and abuse, says doctoral student Ms. Chowkhani. “This is important, but the conversation must include positive aspects of sex and sexuality,” she said.
Some Indian parents may have started cautioning their children about abuse, but they are still leaving the details to privately-hired sex educators. After Ms. Kishinchandani’s recent workshop in Mumbai, the girls emerged with a newfound swagger, grinning from ear to ear at the words they were no longer embarrassed