Having already created controversy with her erotic manual Top Secret: Sexual Guidance for Married Couples, Emirati social worker Wedad Lootah (pictured, inset) is now proposing to pen sex education pamphlets for children. Lootah, a marital counsellor in the Family Guidance section of Dubai Courthouse, tells Time Out: ‘The idea has not yet been introduced to the public – it is only a plan.

[The plan is to write] three awareness booklets for each school stage [kindergarten, junior school, high school]. They will include illustrations and advice for children based on their age, gender and knowledge.’
Lootah argues that sex education for kids in the UAE will be an important factor in battling sexual abuse. ‘There is a very strong need for these booklets at this time because of the large number [of cases] of child sex abuse,’ she says. ‘This increase is negatively affecting children and families. Teachers, housemaids, peers and others may abuse children and these kids don’t understand what’s happening. [Sex education]
is important because sexual abuse can happen everywhere – in malls, schools, houses and many other places.’

Lootah’s proposals will likely divide public opinion in much the same way Top Secret did. Although approved by the Mufti of Dubai, the book was denounced by hardline conservatives and even earned Lootah a number of death threats. Still, it proved to be an instant hit, selling more than 17,000 copies.

Paedophilia remains a taboo topic for discussion in the Middle East, although a number of high-profile cases recently reported in the media may signal that this is changing. In February this year, local press openly reported on the man being held on death row for raping and killing a young boy in a mosque in Dubai over Eid al Adha. In November last year, stories circulated the international press about a notorious paedophile being publicly beheaded in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi has also launched the National Family Safety Programme, a database to register all reported child abuse cases. This is a far cry from the situation in 2004, when child protection specialists criticised the absence of fixed statistics on child abuse in the Arab world. Dubai, too, launched a campaign to highlight child abuse this month. The ‘Protect Childhood Campaign’ is an initiative of the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children (DFWAC) and focuses on how to spot signs and symptoms of abuse. The campaign has operated out of stalls in malls around the city and is holding seminars in schools. DFWAC’s chief executive, Afra Al Basti, told local newspapers that child abuse cases accounted for 25 per cent of the foundation’s clients in 2009.

Still, Lootah can expect to face opposition over sex education for children. She did, after all, find herself under attack after trying to do the same for adults. Her reasons for writing Top Secret are, as with her ideas about child sex education, rooted in improving life in Arab society. Lootah has argued that spiralling divorce rates in the UAE stem from ignorance of sexual issues (some reports claim the UAE has the highest divorce rate in the GCC, at 46 per cent). Published in Arabic in January 2009 and more recently in English, the book aims to help married couples develop a healthy sexual relationship. But despite its grounding in the teachings of the Qur’an and the Mufti’s approval, many Muslims reacted strongly against it.

So how does she feel about that? Why is she pushing yet another contentious issue after her first attempt resulted in threats on her life? ‘I don’t care [about that] – what I’m writing is right and will help people,’ she responds. ‘I am confident and have enough courage. I have faith in God.’ She’s hopeful, too. ‘Our society’s perceptions [about these issues] have dramatically changed [already]. The society seeks to solve its problems and for that it has started accepting material based in the Qur’an.’
Top Secret by Wedad Lootah is available at Magrudy’s for Dhs50. For more about DFWAC, call 04 606 0300 or visit www.dfwac.ae.