Putting child protection first

When a group of young people are asked to think imaginatively about how to prepare for an occasion, say the Pope's visit, it is inevitable that some ideas will be sillier and more offensive than others. The ideas thrown up by junior Foreign Office staff showed every sign of being the result of a brainstorming session that concluded shortly before the pubs shut. And, as such, they should have been filed under D for dustbin rather than being circulated to Whitehall and Downing Street staff where it was virtually certain that they would be leaked to the media. Those who played the situation for laughs by suggesting that the Pope be asked to open an abortion clinic, bless a gay marriage and launch a range of Benedict-branded condoms may well have thought their suggestions hilarious. But they have helped to shift the emphasis from the need to help countless thousands of children abused by clergy to a government apology to the Vatican. The government had no choice over this, since Britain's Catholics are likely to have seen the suggestions as an attack not simply on those who have raped children but on their faith itself. Putting a religious minority in a situation of feeling that the articles of its faith are under attack actually undermines the fundamentals of a tolerant secular society. It is something that Muslims in Britain and in various European countries have been experiencing for some time, with proposals to ban certain modes of dress and architecture.

Worse, to put the government into a position where it has to apologise to the Vatican means taking the pressure off the priority of putting exploited children's interests first. The widespread problem of sexual assaults on children by a minority of Catholic clergy is only part of the problem. More aggravating has been the systematic cover-ups that took place in several countries, where paedophile priests were simply moved to another parish and frequently continued their crimes with a new set of victims. The culture of cover-up and denial was so endemic as to suggest that failure to put an end to this perversion of the church's teachings and of the law of the land stretched to the highest echelons of the organisation. The number of child victims who saw their evidence ignored or disbelieved attests to an even greater treachery than the original betrayal of trust by their abusers. In giving the lie to the victims and protecting the abusers in the name of defending the reputation of the church, the hierarchy acted immorally and illegally. Those who abused children and those who conspired to cover up their crimes should not simply be subject to internal church procedures. They should face charges in criminal courts and attract due retribution in line with the normal sentences handed out to those who rape children. The Catholic church's stipulation of clerical celibacy must not be used as an excuse for abnormal and criminal behaviour. Many people see forced celibacy as unnatural, but that is a matter for the church itself. Non-Catholics have a right to demand punishment of the wrongdoers, compensation for their victims and future protection for children. But this must not stray into demonisation of an entire faith, the overwhelming majority of whose adherents will have been horrified by the shameful treatment of defenceless children.

Sex mis-education?

How can there be so many lunatics opposed to sex education? Apart from anything else, what makes them think a lesson about sex is going to make kids go out and immediately have sex? It's education about it, not an instruction to get it done before dinner break. Maybe they should demand an end to history lessons as well on the grounds that "I don't want my 14-year-old learning about Napoleon as he's too young to invade Italy." Mark Steel is a comedian, a columnist for the Independent newspaper, and a socialist and activist in Britain. He's the author of two collections about contemporary Britain, It's Not a Runner Bean: Dispatches from a Slightly Successful Comedian and Reasons to Be Cheerful--as well as Vive la Revolution: A Stand-up History of the French Revolution. A law has been devised making sex education compulsory. But now, after "extensive lobbying" from the priesthood, an amendment's been added that religious schools will still be able to teach their own unique Biblical version. For example, according to Ed Balls, Schools Secretary, the schools "can still teach contraception is wrong, but they can't refuse to teach it."

So that's an improvement, I suppose. The Catholic teacher can demonstrate putting a condom on a banana, saying, "First, we expel the air, then place it over the end, then we remember that if you do this for real, you'll face an eternity in unimaginably agonizing molten lava searing through your pores as you scream in soulless anguish while demons submerge you in relentless unbearable horror, then right the way along, nice and snug, and we're done. Now you try." If the only rule is that they have to teach about sex, but it doesn't matter if it's in any way true, the religious schools might as well teach anything they like. They could tell the class: "Copy down these facts: 1) Doing it from behind makes your tongue fall out. 2) Masturbation causes earthquakes. 3) Every time you get an erection, you poke an angel's eye out."

There are no other subjects that schools would be allowed to teach with their own version of the truth. If a teacher told his class, "Some people believe the capital of Italy is Rome, but I've always said it's Nairobi in the North Pole," they wouldn't get an Ofsted report saying, "He might be teaching geography that's cobblers, but he's teaching it, and that's the main thing." Religious schools will probably try this trick with other lessons now to see what they can get away with, refusing to teach chemistry as they don't believe in sulphur, or announcing they won't teach the six times tables, as the Pope's had a vision that it's wrong. So we're left with differing methods of approaching sex education. One might be to acknowledge that we get desires that can be lethal at times, so it's probably for the best if we find ways of managing them safely and respectfully. Or there's the more traditional method, which is more along the lines of "You know those natural feelings you get--well, they're unnatural, so stop having them."

They might as well teach that God wants everyone to be cold, and if we feel a desire to shut the door in winter, we must fight the temptation, and we must go to the park in January in our swimming trunks, and if we shiver or reach for a coat, that's Satan at work, and we should discuss it with the priest. This might do less damage than teaching sex education that involves pictures of sexually transmitted diseases, and stories of the decrepit life that awaits anyone who submits to sexual temptation. Imagine the outrage if people in favor of sex education resorted to those tactics, by saying, "This is what happens if you stay a virgin all your life," and showing a picture of Ann Widdecombe. But somehow, it's when sexuality is most denied and suppressed that you find society most riddled with torment and horror--of abused children shipped out of the country to avoid embarrassment and hushed-up, illegal abortions, and all the things that God doesn't seem to mind as long as no one uses a condom.

But then, the government probably isn't bothered about the social implications of their policy, as long as the schools get good exam results. They won't mind if the Catholic school turns out a heap of screwed-up teenagers as long as they get A grades for correctly calculating the angles in the holy trinity. In any case, it's probably all irrelevant, as most schools manage to make lessons excruciatingly dull, whatever the subject. So it could be a sex education lesson about responsibility in relationships, using the problems of Ashley Cole, and by the end, everyone would be staring out of the window as the teacher bawled, "Come on, we ought to know this, what's wrong with Ashley's texts? Well, before he writes 'then make you scream like a hyena,' there should be punctuation. No wonder he's in trouble, now write it out as he should have done."

Let's talk about sex

Britain is officially the worst place in Europe for teenage pregnancies and STD's, ranking amongst America in international standards. Conception rates among girls rose from 40.9 per 1,000 in 2006 for those aged 15-17, to 41.9 per 1,000 in 2007. The number of conceptions per 1,000 girls aged 12 to 15 has risen from 7.8 in 2006 to 8.1 in 2007, today's figures show. In 2008, 1.2 million sexual health screens were carried out at GUM clinics in the UK, an increase of nearly 50 per cent since 2004. In the same year, there were 399,738 new sexually transmitted infection diagnoses at GUM clinics in the UK, an increase of 53 per cent on 1999. So what are we doing incorrectly? And what are we failing to do in order to correctly address this issue? Who do we turn to in order to resolve this ever-growing problem?

The Netherlands could probably be my favourite example of how sex should be treated; liberal attitudes and open-mindedness having actually proven to be effective in the battle against underage sex, especially promiscuous sex. With a teen pregnancy rate of under 1% Netherlands has virtually eliminated a health and social problem. Sex education and free contraceptives, along with fostering liberal attitudes toward sex, has virtually eliminated teen pregnancy as a health and social problem in the Netherlands. Holland has fewer pregnant teenagers than most Western countries. In the Netherlands less than 1 percent of 15- to 17-year-old women get pregnant each year. Nearly 5 percent became pregnant in Britain, the highest rate in Western Europe; in America it's an astonishing 10% prevalence of teenage pregnancies that have become a stumbling block for their society. The Dutch have seen a steady drop in the number of young mothers for decades, even as the teen pregnancy rate has been increasing in other countries. While other countries have been teaching celibacy, the Dutch have accepted that teens are sexually active and have introduced measures to deal with it.  Oral contraceptives are available at pharmacies and free through the National Sick Fund, a state-funded system that ensures that low-income people have medical care. Statistics show that Dutch teenagers are using them. In 1995, 70 percent of sexually active 18-year-olds were using birth control pills. Eighty-five percent of teens used a condom, the pill or both during their first sexual experience.

With the lowest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe (8.4 per 1,000 girls between 15 and 19), any initiative in the Netherlands deserves attention. “There is no country that has invested so much in research into family planning…, media attention and improvement of service delivery than the Netherlands,” wrote experts from the Netherlands Institute of Social and Sexological Research (NISSO) in a specialised journal. Although the country has no mandatory national curriculum, nearly all secondary schools provide sex education as part of biology classes and over half the country’s primary schools address sexuality and contraception. According to H. Roling, a professor of education at the University of Amsterdam, “the Dutch government has always accepted the fact that education was better than denial,” and the subject has been tackled in schools since the 1970s. Since 1993, the government, without stipulating the contents of classes, has stressed that schools should aim to give students the skills to take their own decisions regarding health, and in particular sexuality. Textbooks were revised and according to Reinders, now take a more “comprehensive approach to sexuality. The curriculum focuses on biological aspects of reproduction as well as on values, attitudes, communication and negotiation skills.” Some schools simply use these textbooks, others complement them with the foundation’s pack, which includes a video, a teacher’s manual and a student magazine. “The education system is very much built not only around transmitting knowledge but giving the skills to apply that knowledge in everyday life,” says Reinders. “Decision-making skills are very important.”

But sex education in schools is not enough to explain the Dutch record. The Rutgers Foundation, a family planning association that has launched several large-scale public information campaigns in the past decades, sees a constellation of other factors. The media has been at the forefront of an open dialogue: between 1993 and 1997, a prime-time talk show featured a leading Dutch pop star discussing sexuality. Confidentiality, guaranteed anonymity and a non-judgmental approach are hallmarks of the health care system. Last but not least, “parents in the Netherlands take a very pragmatic approach. They know their children are going to have sex, and they are ready to prepare them and to speak with them about their responsibility. This is the key word,” says Mischa Heeger of the Rutgers Foundation. Contraceptives are widely used. According to a NISSO study, 85 per cent of sexually active young people use a contraceptive, and the pill is freely available. The average age of a youth’s first sexual intercourse is 17.7 years. Even with this record, the Foundation for STD control recognises that it is still difficult for many teachers to talk with students about sexuality, despite training provided over the years, notably by the Rutgers Foundation. Family planning organizations are also concerned about the higher rates of teenage pregnancy among Turkish and Moroccan girls, and are developing programmes specially geared towards them. But the country’s record has attracted attention from abroad. The Rutgers Foundation provides training to doctors and social workers as well as assistance to education ministries in developing curricula, notably in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. To some critics who argue that “talking about sex gives children the wrong idea,” Jos Poelman of the Foundation for STD control has one answer. “Face the facts. We have the lowest number of teenage mothers [in Europe], and Dutch students do not start having sex at a younger age than their foreign counterparts.”

I personally would like to see the introduction of this model in Britain, as well as the more practical approach of openly talking about sex and relationships from adolescence onwards. Raise the issues of prostitution, of the age of consent for gays, or of sex education and the very public debate that ensues seems to reveal that the British remain resolutely reactionary about their most intimate relations; we must be able to break that stigma, the last social taboo of (whisper it) sexual intercourse. Britons have become strikingly liberal over a range of key issues. Among a plethora of fascinating, revealing and sometimes contradictory findings, this significant degree of tolerance and an increasing appetite for more adventurous sex comes through strongly. But is this quiet sexual revolution we are undertaking enough? In a 2006 survey 84 per cent agree that schools should teach children about sexual behaviour and relationships - going beyond the basic biology of reproduction, the only sex-related education they are currently obliged to provide. On that issue, public opinion is far ahead of the government, which will almost certainly reject the recent call by its own independent advisers on sexual health to make such tuition mandatory. Similarly, about two-thirds (65 per cent) believe prostitution should be legalised, an increase of 4 per cent since our last survey in 2002. The number of people who have had some form of same-sex 'sexual contact' has also risen, from 11 to 15 per cent. And almost one in three people (27 per cent) has slept with someone from a different ethnic background.

The average age of first-time sex is fourteen in Britain, and it's not extremely unusual to see some start even younger than that; surely we must be able to finally speak out and do what is right in order to halt this before it spirals out of control? Every year, almost 50,000 girls under 18 fall pregnant, leading critics to claim that government-led efforts to encourage safer sex are backfiring. The number who conceive is at its highest level since a multi-million-pound teenage pregnancy crackdown almost a decade ago. As a result, Britain tops the league table of teenage mothers in western Europe, despite also having a record number of school-age abortions. This comes despite the Government investing more than £150 million in an attempt to stem the tide of conceptions - and pledging to cut teenage pregnancy rates by half by the end of this decade. Maybe it's about time we looked to the Dutch to see what we need to do in order to dramatically cut teenage pregnancies and a soaring rate of STI's in Britain; it certainly wouldn't take an instant, we could be looking at whole decades, but it would be effective and it would protect young people from a life damaged by a potential reckless mistake. The levels of sexually transmitted diseases are growing. It's worth shooting down one myth. There is no relation between the amount of sexual activity and the frequency of pregnancy. Young people in Sweden are more sexually active than their US counterparts but teenage pregnancies are four times lower.   There is nothing wrong with teenage sex - apart from the risks shared by all sexually active adults. So surely we should be finding ways to minimise these risks and ensure that sex at any age is safe and consensual rather than moralising about perceived loss of innocence. Not havin sex isn't a realistic option for teenagers - but educating them about sex and relationships in an appropriate manner will give them the aid they need to at least practice safe sex.

Sex education: youth, respect and equality

We need to be talking to young people about attitudes and values, good and bad relationships and so on. It’s really important that sexual violence becomes part of sex and relationships education. There is a high level of sexual bullying that has a huge impact on both girls and boys from quite a young age. It starts in primary school with name-calling – like homophobic insults and words like “slut”. This can escalate if it’s not dealt with. Without the right support in schools, it can become sexual harassment and sexual bullying. Coercive sex, and sex as an exchange for social status or money – known as transactional sex – are becoming more and more a feature for girls. It’s quite disturbing because it’s becoming normal, part of “that’s just what you do”. This can lead to further sexual abuse as girls get older. We need to go back to some of the women’s liberation agenda – that it’s your body and it’s your right to say no.

The young people who are most vulnerable to violence are sexually active, and maybe have already been pregnant. They often feel they have lost the right to say no. This is particularly true of young women who are involved with gangs. Often, if they have had sex with a boy in the gang, they feel pressured to say yes to others. Some girls then see the situation as their fault because they have been sexually active. There is a right wing, moralistic, agenda that is very anti-sex and anti-young people. Yet that comes from a media where everything is sexualised, often in a negative way. And, along with that, come images of women’s bodies used to sell products, the objectification of women in popular culture and the way strip clubs have become mainstream. That means that lots of conflicting messages are being sent to young people. Boys are under huge pressure – if they’re not active they are taunted as gay and pressured into sexual activity to prove that they’re not. This is happening to 12, 13, 14 year olds. So I don’t think we can solely blame young men when negative messages about women are everywhere. They add pressure to both girls and boys.

Young people don’t get much education about sex and good relationships – there’s the right wing that says not to talk about it. For example, there’s a big fuss about the work sexual health educators do in primary schools, but what young people see in the media is often very explicit and negative. If more positive work was done, with more acceptance of the reality of people’s lives, and less stress on “family values”, then young people would be better equipped to negotiate through those situations and make decisions in a more positive way. research shows that the more good sex education there is – about bodies, feelings, emotions and relationships – the less likely 12 and 13 year olds are to become sexually active. They become more likely to put off having sex until later. Britain has the worst sex education in Europe – though it is improving. On average, young people here start having sex earlier, and we have some of the highest teenage pregnancy rates. We can’t separate how unequal Britain is from these facts. With higher inequality and less opportunities, young people are more likely to become pregnant. For some young women, being a mother represents one of the few ways in which they can be taken seriously as adult, with a clear role in society. Special clinics for young people have improved things but haven’t gone far enough. We need to expand the services and get out to the people who find it’s most difficult to access them.