Sex ed is not mandatory in Bulgaria so these activists made an illustrated guide for girls

In Bulgaria, sex education is not part of the compulsory curriculum in schools. That means it's up to every school in the country to decide whether they even want to address sex ed at all. 

In fact, just 10 percent of schools teach sex ed, according to a speech by the Bulgarian Ombudsman, Maya Manolova. With the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the European Union along with Romania, Bulgarian girls are disproportionately affected by the country's dangerous absence of sex ed. 

Two activists have taken matters into their own hands by crowdfunding Bulgaria's first ever illustrated sexual health book for girls, Vagina Matters: A Sex Ed Book For Girls, which covers menstruation, sex, and the female anatomy. The guide will be distributed for free both online and offline throughout the country, providing a lifeline for young girls in Bulgaria. 

In 2016, Bulgaria passed a new law adding sex education as an optional module to the curriculum. While the law is more supportive of sex ed than ever before, political unrest in the country means it's unclear whether it'll be implemented anytime soon, per an International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) report. 

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The book is the brainchild of human rights activists Svetla Baeva and Raya Raeva, who are currently raising money for the book's printing costs on Indiegogo. Raeva is the campaigns director at the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, a prominent human rights organisation in Bulgaria. Baeva is the campaigns director at Fine Acts, a nonprofit for socially engaged creative solutions. 

"We wanted to create a book written by women for women to pass on all the knowledge that we’ve learned through research and trial and error in an engaging way," Baeva told Mashable. "We, ourselves, have suffered as a result of the lack of policies and sex ed programs." 

Baeva explained some of the myths that are being perpetuated among young Bulgarian women due to the lack of sex ed. 

"Many girls wrongly believe pregnancy is not possible when you menstruate, that you menstruate and urinate from the same opening or that if you use tampons, you’ll lose your virginity," said Baeva. "Many women continue to be unaware of the full extent of the clitoris and its key role in sex and pleasure.

"Many girls and women are left to understand the intricacies of their own anatomy via the internet and occasional articles in popular lifestyle media publications," Baeva continued. "This opens the door to erroneous perceptions about the body, menstruation, sex, and more."

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Per an IPPF report, countries where sex ed is "hardly or not taught in schools," teenage pregnancy rates tend to be high. U.S. research has found that adolescents who receive comprehensive sex education in schools are "significantly less likely to report teen pregnancy." 

A 2017 UNICEF report on Bulgarian women and children not only found early sexual initiation rates, but a concerning lack of condom use among teens. Among 15-year-olds in the country, 40 percent of boys, and 20 percent of girls said they'd already had sex — but only 56 percent of those girls, and 66 percent of boys reporting using a condom during their latest sexual contact. Alarmingly, a 2018 study by Loveguide.bg — a Bulgarian sex ed site — found that only 42 percent of students could give a correct answer about the function of a condom. 

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Baeva said an absence of knowledge and confidence about their own bodies is disempowering young people in Bulgaria. 

"We continue to teach children about the basic don’ts in sexual health but shy away from giving them the full knowledge of their bodies," said Baeva. "In this way, we negate them the power of control over their experiences and the confidence to speak aptly about health situations or how they’re feeling whether with partners or in the gynaecologist's office." 

SEE ALSO: How the internet gave me a vagina complex

With Vagina Matters, Baeva and Raeva hope to plug the existing gap in sexual health education in Bulgaria. "It’s essentially a pocket guidebook with the answers to all the burning questions that girls might have about the female body, menstruation, sex and more," said Baeva. While the book is aimed at girls aged between 14 and 19, they believe that due to the existing taboo surrounding these issues, the book will be just as relevant for women in their 20s and 30s. 

Baeva and Raeva have been working with local organisations over the past year to ensure the book will be distributed widely to young girls throughout the country. They plan to distribute the book for free online and offline through these partnerships. If they manage to raise more than their fundraising target, they plan to translate the book into English and open it to translations in other languages, having been contacted by organisations and activists in Poland and Romania, for example.

In order to ensure the information in the book is accurate, both Baeva and Raeva spent one year researching and reading recent studies on women's sexual health. "Once we had our content ready, we reached out to a number of experts such as medical and sex ed professionals, midwives, lawyers and many more, who have certified our content," said Baeva. The authors partnered with the Bulgarian Women's Fund, who gave them a grant for the book. The pair also went through several drafts with gynaecologists from the Bulgarian Midwives Association. 

Baeva and Raeva collaborated with artists Borislava Karadjova and Mihaela Karadjova who created over 150 illustrations for the book in a bid to make the subject matter "friendly and accessible." 

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At the time of writing, the pair have achieved 77 percent of their funding goal on Indiegogo.

"Our campaign and book are a statement for any politicians listening that policies on comprehensive sexual health education are very much needed," said Baeva. 

Hear, hear. 

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