In BiH society, a discriminating attitude towards others and those who are different represents a template for behavior among its young population. This is especially visible when we take a look at attitudes towards LGBT people and their rights.
Written by: Miljan Kovač
In BiH society, a discriminating attitude towards others and those who are different represents a template for behavior among its young population. This is especially visible when we take a look at attitudes towards LGBT people and their rights. We could search for the cause among family, upbringing, the influence of environment and media, but before we do anything else, we must search for it within the educational system, where this topic is neglected to say the least.
The biggest problem lies in inadequate teaching plans and programs for elementary and high schools, educational facilities that move from a scale of representing a negative opinion to ignoring the topic completely.
Let us all be reminded that we are talking about rights that are guaranteed by both state and entity constitutions, therefore there should be no issue with students at least becoming informed about them.
The teaching staff is the key and it is mostly either homophobic or hesitant to present this topic to students. Atop of that, it seems as though the civil sector has greatly failed at this as well. The civil sector has been addressing LGBT topics in BiH educational system a little, but obviously not enough.
Regulations and Practice
The law that bans discrimination, passed in Bosnia and Herzegovina back in 2009, states that LGBT rights must be respected. This was the first law to recognize sexual orientation as a human right in this country, and in accordance to this, protects a person’s orientation from any injury or discrimination. However, student textbooks with human rights topics don’t mention LGBT rights anywhere.
Regardless of insufficiencies, which still exist, legal framework that exists at both entity and state levels leaves room for students to develop awareness on citizen equality, regardless of sexual orientation.
Yet, reality is different. Like with other areas of social relations where stereotypes and prejudices can be seen, there isn’t enough room for improvement, nor are there enough systematic and educational activities.
Republic of Srpska’s teaching plans and programs don’t have a single teaching unit or part of a unit that addresses LGBT population and its rights.
A high school professor, who wanted to remain anonymous, says that she personally tries to speak to students regarding this problem, as well as some of her colleagues with whom she had discussed this topic.
She said that student reactions are diverse.
Their opinions range from the most extreme, such as “that’s sick”, “I would do ‘something terrible’”, towards less aggressive, such as “it’s alright, but they should not be allowed to adopt”, all the way to positive thoughts such as “it’s better for a kid to grow up in a happy homosexual family instead of being exposed to physical and psychological violence in a heterosexual one” and “my friend is gay and I would never judge him because of this”.
“When I steer the conversation into a calmer tone and present students who have radically extreme opinions with different opinions coming from one of their fellow classmates, their initial belligerence dies down. Thinking back to one of their discussions as an example, both sides find a compromise when they collectively condemn offenses made by certain pride parade participants aimed at those who disagree with them (for example, provocative and offensive messages aimed at religious people). Boys are usually louder when it comes to showing burning judgement. It is also interesting to notice that most of them also have the need to emphasize that they are not a part of that population while they are presenting their opinion, even when the opinion is positive.”
Aleksandra Arsenijević-Puhalo, a high school psychology professor, is one of the few among educators who wants to publicly speak about this topic. She considers homophobia a reaction to messages that young people are receiving from their families, their peers, from the media, the environment and important social models.
“There aren’t many LGBT intolerant young people who actually personally know a member of this community! They accept views that have already been formed and they generalize this community in a negative context. Usually, they consider a non-straight sexual orientation to be unnatural and immoral and they are taken by surprise when someone who is gay doesn’t “look like they’re gay”.
Still, she concludes that the situation is changing and young people are less homophobic than before. “Public authorities coming out around the world, especially in art, politics, sports and other fields of human action worldwide, have probably contributed to this.”
She says that the problem usually isn’t just within one segment of the educational system. Educational elites are making an effort to modernize teaching programs, but this isn’t an easy task, nor are they doing this quickly enough.
“We live in a country that propagates childbirth and raises awareness of the importance of family as a heterosexual community, therefore it is difficult to expect that attention is being given to educational content that informs students about the LGBT population. Also, some colleagues sometimes publicly present their prejudice towards LGBT people and comment on them in a negative context in front of students, which isn’t good.”
Insisting on a “Traditional Family”
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are three types of teaching plans and programs. Besides two of them being on the entity levels, there is a teaching program for schools in the Croatian language which is regulated by the Institute of School Systems, with headquarters in Mostar.
However, when it’s about LGBT rights, differences between Banja Luka, Mostar and Sarajevo do not exist.
Nobody, not even the civil sector, has addressed this problem at a state level or at both entity levels.
A rare analysis exists, but only for the Canton of Sarajevo, and it was published by CURE Foundation. The results of their analysis was published in 2016 and this example from Canton Sarajevo can be used for the entire country.
From the beginnings of education in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a traditional family, comprised of a man, a woman and their children, takes a special place in teaching plans and programs. Families without children are often considered defected. This research shows that by defining family relations like this, LGBT people and their family rights are automatically being excluded.
This research also states that such examples are not only found in teaching plans and programs for catechism, which is something to be expected. Examples can also be found in biology textbooks.
This is where sexual drive, eroticism and breeding are represented as terms that are in harmony with each other and “cannot be separated”.
Ignoring as a Form of Discrimination
Not only does educational content not mention same sex couples, with or without children, but it doesn’t even leave any space or possibility for their existence.
If we can find such a situation in biology textbooks, then we shouldn’t be surprised that catechism (all three major religious teachings in the country) defines family as “a natural” blood related social unit. In this case, students are deprived of any explanation of what “normal” is when it comes to family and how something that is being called “a social community” can be “a natural community” at the same time.
The sample that was analyzed in the project by CURE Foundation shows that sexual orientation is only mentioned through the prism of biology. There are no representations of it being a human right, nor does anyone explain that discrimination against sexual orientation has legal consequences within BiH law.
Unlike Bosnia and Herzegovina, countries in its region have made some positive steps within their educational systems regarding the rights of LGBT people.
In Serbia, just before the beginning of school year 19/20, a part of a textbook was annulled and withdrawn from the educational system after a request had been made by organizations from the civil sector. The content of this textbook had been deemed as discriminatory. In Montenegro, such content had been previously corrected.
Translate: Lidija Drakulić
Author: Impuls