Stopping violence against girls, women should start in schools
Women and girls still suffer physical and sexual abuse.
Just when will it be safe for a girl to walk home at night without the threat of assault, or worse, by a man?
When will married women feel safe in the presence of their partners in their own homes? And, when will schools and workplaces be free of gender-based violence?
In just a few months, we have been reminded yet again how vulnerable girls and women are to violence and harassment.
Globally, about one in three women have experienced physical and sexual violence in their lifetime, according to various recent researches.
On the Instagram page of Everyone’s Invited, an online campaign against rape culture in the UK, more than 15,000 disturbing accounts of sexual assault and harassment have been shared by girls and boys. It is striking how many of the attacks took place in learning institutions. So disturbing are some of the testimonies that some newspapers referred to one school as a “hotbed of sexual violence”.
Confusion
What is obvious from these posts is the magnitude of confusion surrounding the issue of consent — a basic principle of gender equality and healthy relationships.
Why are young girls and boys very unsure about what a consensual relationship is? And why don’t they know when certain actions are inappropriate? The solution is comprehensive sexuality education from an early age.
Comprehensive sexuality education classes are critical in equipping girls and boys with the information they need to make responsible choices in their lives.
Reduce violence
Sexuality education can fit into existing curricula or even extracurricular activities such as “A Right to Play”, a school-based programme that uses sports and games to reduce violence in school.
Unesco has developed a technical guide for governments and recommends that lessons on healthy and unhealthy relationships should start from age five.
If conversations start early enough, they can be empowering for everyone, especially girls. They can shift norms such as toxic masculinity, which feed into gender-based violence and help create a non-violent culture.
If schools do not actively shape the conversation around sex and relationships, young people will continue to turn to the internet as their only source of information. We cannot continue to let that happen.
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