Posts misrepresent WHO document on sex education standards

"WHO agenda to SEXUALIZE Children! You can find this on their website!" says a January 8, 2024 Instagram post.

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Screenshot of an Instagram post taken January 10, 2024

The post includes a screenshot of supposed instructions for children aged 0-4 to "learn about masturbation" and those aged 9-12 to "have their first sexual experience and learn to use online pornography."

The caption says the WHO is "making sure that little children have sexual relationships, learn how to masturbate and use online pornography." Similar claims have circulated on X, formerly Twitter.

But the allegations are inaccurate. WHO documentation includes information on the sexual behaviors described in the posts, but it does not endorse teaching all of them to infants and pre-teens, according to the agency and independent experts.

"The Instagram post does not differentiate between the standards that the guidelines say need to be included and those that may be included but are optional," said Eva Goldfarb, a pubic health professor at Montclair State University, on January 11. "There is a world of difference there that they ignore."

Not all recommendations

The source of the claims is a 2010 document from the WHO Regional Office for Europe, written in partnership with the German Federal Centre for Health Education, titled "Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe" (archived here).

In it, the WHO explains the importance of comprehensive sex education for children.

"Sexuality education is a broad comprehensive topic and its contents change as the child develops into an adolescent and later to a young adult," the agency says. "At the age of three, a child needs different information and support compared with what he/she needs 10 years later."

The WHO then presents its observations and guidance for different age ranges. Tables with language similar to that shared in the posts appear starting on page 38 -- some of which the agency identifies as minimum topical standards.

However, the information "can be used in a flexible way to adapt to the specific needs of individuals or groups," according to the WHO.

"WHO does not promote masturbation -- or indeed any other act -- in our documents,"  the agency told AFP in a January 12, 2024 statement.

"However, we recognize that children across the world start to explore their bodies through sight and touch at a relatively early age. This is an observation, not a recommendation."

Leslie Kantor, chair of the Department of Urban-Global Public Health at the Rutgers School of Public Health, confirmed January 10 that there is "nothing in any of these documents that recommend any behaviors to young people."

"All of the recommendations are related to information that would be helpful to young people at different ages," she said.

"The truth is, young people have questions about their bodies, they have questions about gender, they have questions about relationships, and we want to be addressing those and giving young people the skills they need to tell truth from fiction -- starting at a young age -- so they can stay safe and healthy."

Research from academics including Goldfarb of Montclair State indicates school-based sex education helps prevent intimate partner violence and child sex abuse (archived here).

"Evidence shows that young people are more likely to initiate sexual activity later -- and when they do have sex, to practice safer sex -- when they are better informed about sexuality, sexual relations and their rights," the WHO told AFP.

AFP has debunked a similar claim about the WHO in French here.