Sexual Violence and Sex Education in India: Are We Missing Wood for the Trees?

Sir,

The term sexual violence encompasses a range of sexual offences and is defined by the World Health Organization as

any sexual act or an attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments, or advances, acts to traffic or otherwise directed, against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim in any setting, including but not limited to home and work. ¹

In India, the problem is much deeper and more complex, especially at this juncture when the media is brimming with the news of gruesome rapes and heinous sexual crimes. There is no winding down of the situation despite several mass movements, strikes, protests, and stringent laws; we perhaps are missing the wood for the tree. In India, underpinning of various socio-cultural and religious factors along with sexual illiteracy, human and drug trafficking, gender inequality and conservative attitude of society pose challengers.^2,3 There is a surge in reporting of such cases of sexual violence in recent times perhaps because of the unfortunate Nirbhaya case and “Me Too” movement which caught the attention of the public. Despite the increased consciousness, there is still a pressing need to understand what we need to do to prevent sexual violence to happen in the first place.

To stance our preventive strategies better we need to understand a few aspects of this growing problem: First, the demography of the country: one third of the country population is less than 21-year-old’s; every tenth teenager is experiencing puberty and more than a quarter transit to adolescences. ⁵ Second, a gross lack of sexual education at both the school and college levels. A Mumbai-based survey shows that 90% of students recommend sex education in school and only 21.3% received sex education from parents. ⁵ Third, negative attitude of parents and society toward sex education. A survey from Jammu and Kashmir shows that majority of parents (89%) are unwilling for sex education to be delivered to their daughters and only 3% favors sex education. ⁶ Last, there is poor funding for such programs.

Youth undergoes various physical and psychological changes. There is robust evidence that sex education has a preventive role in sexual violence.^4,7 In addition to the current Family Life Education Programs (FLE), ⁸ there is need for comprehensive program covering wide range of topics such as sexual health, anatomy, physiology, puberty, reproductive health, sexually transmitted diseases, healthy relationship, homosexuality, and sexual violence-based factors with evidence-based information, delivered in a graded manner using small groups and workshop formats. The matriculation students, bystander programs that foster attitudinal changes, encourage intervene when witnessing warning signs of sexual violence should be made mandatory. Game-based learning formats can also be used to deliver sexual health education to better engage the adolescent population. Training peer educators could also be an effective strategy considering adolescents are more likely to listen and open up to other adolescents. Parental programs should focus on improving communication with adolescents about sex and debunking myths associated with sexuality as parents play a primary role in disseminating sexual information through words and values. ⁹ Another important link is the teachers; training of schoolteachers can be at a state or zonal level with the help of pediatricians, gynecologists, physicians, or psychiatrists as a key resource person. Comprehensive teachers training programs covering pertinent sex information, policies, and legal and emergency protocol standards should be conducted. Last and most important is the funding, which should ideally be government-driven programs integrated in the curriculum.

Education targeting the prevention of sexual violence needs to hew from all the sides by incorporating systematic programs including sex education at school and college levels, robust teachers training, and parent education programs.