Some years ago I saw a cartoon whose subject becomes more real by the day. It showed a Brave-New-Wold nursery in which newborns were being instructed via a loudspeaker: “Today you will be going home, but before you go, here is your first sex education lesson...” I was reminded of it by a Fox News report of a new universal sex-ed curriculum from UNESCO.

The UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation has decided that, “in a world affected by HIV and AIDS”, it is “imperative” to teach children as young as 5 about masturbation as well as “gender roles, stereotypes and gender-based violence”.

By the time they're 9 years old, they'll learn about "positive and negative effects of 'aphrodisiacs," and wrestle with the ideas of "homophobia, transphobia and abuse of power."

At 12, they'll learn the "reasons for" abortions — but they'll already have known about their safety for three years. When they're 15, they'll be exposed to direct "advocacy to promote the right to and access to safe abortion."

Not sure what’s left for 15 to 18-year-olds: maybe they’ll be getting work experience in a clinic.

The scheme, with its surrounding material – including long lists of experts consulted, studies “rigorously reviewed” and footnoted, and various rationalisations -- runs to 98 pages. The authors are Douglas Kirby, the elder statesman of comprehensive sex-ed research and advocacy in the United States, and Nanette Ecker, employed at the time by SIECUS – the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US.

Mark Richmond, director of UNESCO’s Division for the Co-ordination of UN Priorities for Education (wonder how many staff he has...), was asked to justify the curriculum (which it is up to governments to accept or not):

Richmond defended teaching about masturbation as "age-appropriate" because even in early childhood, "children are known to be curious about their bodies." Their lessons, he added, would hopefully help kids "develop a more complex understanding of sexual behaviour" as they grow into adults.

For "complex" read "perverted". One doesn’t like to bash the UN, but really, doesn’t this sort of thing illustrate that it is trying to do far too much and that its brief should be severely curtailed?