Sarah Harte: Modern sex education is our best weapon to combat gender-based violence

Sex education in schools is a crucial part of a more complicated societal picture, but it seems clear that the state has difficult choices to make

Last month the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission said that violence against women has “reached crisis levels in Ireland”.

The results of a newly published extensive online relationship quiz reported in this paper by Padraig Hoare and Liz Dunphy are disturbing. They have further exposed “the extent of coercive control, sexual pressure, and violence in young people’s” relationships. Red lights should be flashing everywhere.

Of the 20,000 young people who responded to the online Women’s Aid quiz, 93% said their partner had threatened to post intimate images when they fought; 83 % said that they had been hit by a partner, and 72% said their partner went through their phone.