Story of Nguyen Sinh Hung

My name is Nguyen Sinh Hung, and I am 14 years old. I was born and grew up in a traditional family in the suburbs of Ha Noi, Viet Nam. I advocate for the right to education on sexuality for adolescents and young people. In my belief, it’s the lack of knowledge and the openness to discuss and talk about sexuality that prevent us from fully understand differences in identity and generate tremendous hurdles to realization of the rights of the LGBTI+ community.

In Viet Nam, students go to school learning about sexuality education in secondary levels – Sciences study for Grade 5 and Biology for Grade 8. Knowledge mainly focuses on the anatomy of the male and female bodies rather than any sexual orientation such as homosexuality, bisexuality, or pansexuality, and others. This led to a huge gap of knowledge, fueled with social stereotypes and cultural and religious prejudices that gave way to misconceptions in basically every area of life.

A friend of mine used to ask me, “Are you infected with homosexuality?”. Nobody in the LGBTI+ can explain why they are the way they are, not from the environment, from the media or the movies we watch. We were just born that way, and sexual orientation is not an infection.

For the past years, I have been active, along with many young people like me, in advocating for changes, starting with how we are taught in school about sexuality. We advocate, through campaigns such as WeShare, for renovation of the educational system’s current curricula to include comprehensive sexuality education – in which not only Generation Z is involved in the development but also the parents. What we truly need, as young people, is the understanding and support from our parents right in the home where we live to overcome stigma and discrimination, norms and judgements so that we can be truly happy with who we are and thrive in an environment that respects diversity and promotes inclusion.

The Ministry of Health in 2022 has issued papers specifying exclusion of homosexuality or any sexual orientation from being classified or recognized as a disease. Step by step, the world is changing but the fight is still ongoing until the day we are all equal in the eyes of one another. – ENDS

In 2021, VNIES and UNICEF started to digitalize the "Comprehensive Sexuality Education for Vietnamese children and youth" project so that students, teachers, and caregivers can also access comprehensive sexuality education digitally. A website was created with a positive rights-based approach, age-appropriate, appealing content that emphasizes healthy relationships, emotional and physical wellbeing to promote gender equality and inclusion. Over 1500 videos from students all over the country joining the WeShare campaign raising their voices about inclusion and the need for comprehensive sexuality education for children and young people, especially those with disability. Available data show that about one-third of Vietnamese young people continue to face barriers in accessing sexual and reproductive health information and services, resulting in health and social consequences such as abortion (adolescents and youth account for 30% of total abortion cases nationwide) or HIV infection (40% of cases aged under 29). This is due mainly to the lack of effective, comprehensive sexual education.