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In #impact Season 5, we sit down with stakeholders working across numerous sectors and industries, to find a common language to address, measure and demonstrate the impact that they are making in tackling the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Today you hear from Bowie Lam at Teen’s Key and their crucial work around SDG 5 Gender Equality.
Find the full transcription of this episode here.
The topics discussed in this episode are mature. Listener discretion is advised.
Bowie Lam has been advocating for the rights of female sex workers for almost a decade. In 2011 after working for an NGO fighting for sex workers rights she founded Teen’s Key.
Teen’s Key – Young Women Development Network, a registered non-profit organisation (NPO) dedicated to improving the lives of vulnerable young women and girls in Hong Kong. This includes those who work in the sex industry, young women faced with an unwanted pregnancy, and/or those vulnerable to sexual health risks.
Teen’s Key’s vision and hope are for a Hong Kong in which all young women and girls have the opportunity, support, and resources to achieve their potential and dream inclusively.
Teen’s Key tackles SDG 5 – Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. You can learn more in this episode about all the amazing initiatives that Teen’s Key is working on.
“Sex education is not compulsory in schools and the guidelines provided by the Education Bureau were last updated in 1997”
Bowie Lam, Teen’s Key
Find the full transcription of this episode here.
In this episode you learn:
- How Bowie broke her own stigma around sex workers and how a serial killer terrorizing Hong Kong’s sex industry influenced her future work with Teen’s Key (4:24)
- How many sex workers that she works with are just ordinary women with many ordinary dreams (7:56)
- How there is little support around unwanted pregnancies for young mothers and how Teen’s Key supports them and provides them with a safe space to foster their leadership skills (13:09)
- How Teen’s Key supports women who have gone through an abortion with a hotline for women going through a crisis, public hospitals have stopped non-emergency services including abortions (11:38)
- Teen’s Key’s sexual health education program (19:44)
- How sex education is not compulsory in schools and how the education bureau only provides a “soft guideline” from 1997 and still have information about ICQ (23:09)
- How (religious local) schools rather educate children about abstinence than sexual health education (23:40)
- Why Teen’s Key provides free HIV and Syphilis rapid testing (31:53)
- How we need to give a safe space to women from all walks of life and help them to make smart decisions in the future (34:40)
- How school closures are affecting pregnant teenagers for the worse (41:47)
- SDG 5: Gender Equality and how Teen’s Key fits into it (46:34)
Featured guests:
- Bowie Lam, CEO and Founder of Teen’s Key
Mentioned in this episode:
- Teen’s Key Website: www.teenskey.org
- Teen’s Key Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeensKey
- Teen’s Key donation page: https://www.teenskey.org/en/subpage.php?id=29
- Family Planning HK – Youth service: https://www.famplan.org.hk/en/our-services/clinic-services/youth-health-care/content
- Family Planning HK – Unwanted pregnancy hotline: +852 5173-6313
- Free Gov. STD clinic (Free for Hong Kong residents, please call before going as some of them have closed due to the pandemic) https://www.dh.gov.hk/english/tele/tele_chc/tele_chc_shcf.html
- Mother’s Choice Hong Kong https://www.motherschoice.org/en/
Also highlighted in this episode:
- In the Changing Room Podcast. A Hong Kong-based Podcast championing women in sports.
Helpful resources to educate yourself on the Sustainable Development Goals
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