Religion and AIDS don’t mix?
Religious students receive watered down version of AIDS awareness booklet
How much should religious students know about AIDS? Not too much, according to the Education Ministry at least.
An Education Ministry booklet for secular students contains vital information about how the HIV virus can be transmitted, while a booklet designed for religious students has been censored and reduced to basic information.
In one notable example, the secular version of the awareness booklet contains a complete list of the various ways through which HIV may be transmitted and includes explicit descriptions such as “sexual contact (genitals, anus, oral sex) without a condom.”
The booklet also specifies situations where HIV transmission is impossible (“the AIDS virus is not transmitted through food and drink) and various scenarios are presented to students (“Omer began dating Dana recently. She made it clear to him she will not be having sex with him unless he undergoes an HIV test. The stunned Omer doesn’t understand Dana and debates whether to have the test. What do you think?”)
In their respective booklet, however, religious students are spared the details and tasked with a general mission instead. “Use the following table to write down what you know about the AIDS disease and what would you like to know, or wouldn’t like to know, about the disease.” More details about AIDS? Examples of how HIV is transmitted? Contraception? Not in our school.
The discrimination between the secular and religious public has raised concerns among educators, some of whom criticized the Education Ministry for failing to distribute the same booklet for both publics.
“It’s not right to hide information from students because they belong to certain institutions. People have the right for privacy yet HIV does not differentiate between religious and secular blood,” said Eti Binyamin, a representative of the national parents’ association.
