Ensuring the Right to Sexual Education for Roma Youth in Romania

D. Iancu (1), R. Teodoroiu (2), Ramona Ursu (3)John Snow

Research &Training Institute (JSI), Bucharest, Romania (1)

John Snow Research &Training Institute (JSI), Cluj office, Romania (2)

Association for Roma Women’s Emancipation, Cluj, Romania (3)

Background: Romania has the largest Roma population in Europe. According with the available data, Roma youth, aged 15-24, are the least likely to receive sexual education in school (early marriage is common among Roma which decrease their chances to receive it), and Roma women are the least likely ethnic group to know basic facts about sexual and reproductive health (S&RH). Total fertility rates and age-specific fertility rates among young Roma women are the highest in the country. Starting with 2003, JSI support a Roma NGO to implement in two schools a health education project. Roma students from the target schools (aged 7-16, coming from a community situated near a garbage dump, living in unsanitary conditions) attend class separately from other students, benefiting from supplementary care and teaching, but -due to this fact- they do not participate in the national school-based health education program. The main role of this project is to fill the gap by providing sexual education to Roma students who would not otherwise benefit from it. After the evaluation, the program plan to be scaled up in other schools. Objectives: 1) to increase participants’ knowledge about hygiene and S&RH; 2) to improve their communication and socialization skills; 3) to assist their personal development; 4) to motivate them to adopt/continue healthy S&RH behaviors.

Design and methods: the project addresses students in three groups based on developmental stages, in order to provide the most age-appropriate information during educational sessions, aimed to improve their knowledge related to S&RH, including Family Planning, sexually transmitted infections prevention topics. During the education seminars, pre-post questionnaires are used to assess the knowledge and attitudes acquired by participants about the subjects covered. Special educational sessions were designed for older students, aged 14-21, prone to have serious problems, including drug use and sexual risky behaviors, and counseling sessions are provided by specialists.

Results: (1) S&RH education curriculum was develop; the content of the sessions is consistent with the national health education curriculum, but has been adapted to meet the cultural needs of Roma youth; (2) S&RH educational sessions are implemented on regular bases, with an increasing number of participants; intermediate results shows (3) an increase in participants knowledge, (4) improved sexual behavior (delayed sexual debut, practicing safe sex), (5) ameliorated social behavior (percent of students dropping out of school decreased during last year); (6) based on the improved social and learning abilities of Roma students, a process of integrating them into regular classes has begun. An unexpected result was the request of the students’ parents to participate in the educational sessions organized within the project, which shows the importance of this intervention for ensuring access to S&RH, too often neglected for Roma people.

Conclusions: the project design, methodology and curriculum will be shared with the Ministry of Education to be replicated in other schools which wish to improve access to sexual education for Roma students.