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

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.

There is context for this. The poisonous smartphone has meant that pornography has become the default sex educator for many. The average age now for a child to receive a smartphone is nine. Harmful porn that warps attitudes to sex and intimacy, and teaches a sexist understanding of sexuality and gender, is a click away.

Director of the National Women’s Council Orla O’Connor said the findings show “there is a long way to go” in confronting misogyny and coercive control among young men. Or as Minister for Justice Simon Harris recently said: “Talking to men, young and old, about consent, gender equality, and health relations needs to happen.”

Domestic violence

Legislation to establish a statutory domestic violence agency is to be brought to cabinet within a month and should be up and running by next January. It’s part of the Government’s zero-tolerance strategy to tackle domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence which will among other things, involve awareness campaigns designed to reduce levels of violence against women.

As the domestic violence legislation is being prepared the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is finalising the new Social Personal and Health Education curriculum (SPHE). There is an undeniable connection between these developments.

The revamped curriculum due to kick in next September will address issues such as gender identity, pornography, and sexual consent for 12- to 15-year-olds in the Junior cycle.

It’s hope that this modernised sex education programme will work towards eradicating “the social and cultural norms that underpin and contribute to gender-based violence”.

As Orla O’Connor said, the online quiz results “really shines a light on the importance of our current review of our sex education programme”, and poses the question of how “we are educating our young men in terms of what a healthy relationship is”. 

The fly in the ointment is that not everyone agrees on what sex education lessons should consist of.

The Association of Patrons and Trustees of Catholic Schools had said that Catholic school ethos must be accommodated to take account of the “constitutionally protected right of patrons to run their schools from a faith-based perspective”. Translation, they will opt out of the new sex ed curriculum if it’s not to their liking.

Currently, the Education Act 1998 supports this opt-out on grounds of ethos where the content is not in line with the “characteristic spirit of the school”.

Tune into the Oireachtas debates on the subject and it becomes apparent that many of our politicians and ministers strongly support this derogation based on school ethos.

There is a double think where on the one hand politicians say it’s critical we deliver ‘age-appropriate, impartial, fact-based information on sex’ but on the other hand fully back schools in saying ‘no thank you’.

Some parents have said that they would take their kids out of class if the curriculum did not align with their values and any attempt to ram sexual education down the parental throat would almost certainly lead to a constitutional challenge in the form of a legal case to the High Court.

There could be a tension between the rights of the parents under Articles 41 and 42 of the Constitution as the primary educators of their children and the duties of the State under a later paragraph of Article 42 to provide a ‘certain minimum moral’ education. How that would be resolved must be an open question but here are my takeaways.

First, an objecting parent could make a pretty strong legal case challenging any attempt to force their children to be sexually educated in a way they viewed as incompatible with their beliefs.

Secondly, on the face of it, it seems legally doubtful that the State could force kids to remain in class for sex education when their parents objected.

However, there does seem to be wriggle room for the State to mandate content by arguing that it comes within the ‘certain minimum moral’ education obligation which devolves constitutionally on the State.

If the State had the stomach for it, it could potentially limit rather than abolish the terms of the derogation and cite its constitutional obligation to guarantee the ‘certain minimum moral’ education.

There is an obvious sensitivity to dictating to parents the values they wish to impart to their kids.

Currently, there is much talk of how Ireland has become a secular society and of the necessity to move away from the dogma of religion. But that is not the wish of a swathe of our population — some of whom quietly keep their cards close to their chest — and could be described as cultural Catholics. Doubtless, the Government is aware of this rump of voters precisely because many members of government belong to it.

Hardly surprising that they keep their heads down when our former strict (many would say grim) Roman Catholic orthodoxy is being replaced by another orthodoxy that purports to be liberal but often feels less than tolerant. Religious belief in particular has become a transgression against the cultural zeitgeist.

Yet there’s a hard, undeniable truth in all of this. 

The zero-tolerance strategy on domestic abuse and sexual violence will never come close to being a tangible reality unless we grasp the nettle of porn, consent, and unpicking widely-held misogynistic beliefs for our young people.

 It's widely agreed amongst non-governmental organisations and experts working in the domestic violence sector that early intervention in the form of sex and relationship education is key in combating violence against women: Core lessons that challenge and change the culture of everyday harassment and gender-based violence against women.

Many frontline practitioners strongly feel that government has failed to understand that prevention is the most crucial action we can take to stem the tide of violence against girls and women.

Last week, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child called for comprehensive sex education to be compulsorily integrated into the Irish school curriculum.

If the State is truly serious about reducing the levels of domestic and sexual violence, then a middle ground between the two polarised positions on sexual education must be explored. It would require compromise on all sides.

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Never underestimate the Irish flair for simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct. Blame it on our history. But there’s no dodging the harsh reality of these results or the fact that in January the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission said that violence against women has “reached crisis levels in Ireland”. 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.