The Swedish government is pumping funding into a series of educational films to teach immigrant women about sex and their reproductive rights, with the social affairs minister calling the project an “extremely urgent” one.
The animated films are the work of the Swedish Association for Sexual Education (RFSU). The sexual health charity has created 11 videos so far and they cover various aspects of sexual education, such as “Lust and Pleasure”, “Female Genitalia”, “Pain during Intercourse” and “Childbirth”.
Sweden’s Minister for Social Affairs Annika Strandhäll has announced an injection of 3.7 million kronor ($416,000) to help fund the project. “We have established that some of the women in this group of new arrivals come from societies with completely different norms, rules and laws,” she said on Sweden’s national public broadcaster, STV.
“This project will give this group of women a better chance to understand sexual and reproductive rights in Sweden.” The minister added that the funding was “extremely urgent”.
The videos explain sexual norms in Sweden in a range of languages including Arabic, Somali, Persian, Kurdish and English. RFSU’s website outlines that the aim of the videos is to highlight that “everyone has the right to sex, relationships and the body”. With the new tranche of funding the charity plans to create new versions of the videos in more languages.
In 2016 the German government launched a similar website, called Zanzu, which offers “advice on sex and sexuality for migrants who have not been living long in Germany.”
The website drew a mixed response. Some commenters praised it for its straightforward approach to sexuality, while others said it was condescending to immigrants.
Heinz-Jürgen Voss, a sex scientist at the University of Merseburg, told the Washington Post that it was “racist” to assume that foreigners had less sexual education than Germans.
“It’s important to promote this kind of open and free sexuality, to fight for it,” he said. “It’s not something that the state can force people to do, to live openly. But it needs to be negotiated.”
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