- early intervention – making sure young people understand the importance of healthy relationships and respect the right to say no
- make sure young people understand the importance of healthy relationships and respect the right to say no
- crack down on irresponsible advertising and marketing, especially to children
- take steps to tackle the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood, and publish materials on teenage relationship abuse to support young people, teachers and schools to tackle this issue
If you're going to teach children about healthy relationships, and that people should respect their right to say no, you have to start with children at an early age. Many people take for granted their own privilege and don't acknowledge that the difference between right and wrong is not set in each individual as 'common sense', it is something that is learnt through one's experience. Children could witness awful things at home and believe it to be completely normal as they've never been told otherwise. However, if you're going to teach children about healthy relationships, that means teaching them about relationships between all people, between differing religions, races, genders, sexualities etc. I'm aware that this particular publication from the Home Office is to deal with violence against women and girls, but I think a wider point needs to be acknowledged. Emphasising the importance of healthy relationships means talking about inequalities in relationships across society, not just between men and women in the private sphere of the home. Equality between men and women is really important, but if we're discussing relationships, and I'm assuming (I know you shouldn't ever assume, but whatever, I'm going to) they're meaning relationships in a sexual sense, I'd be interested to see whether our lovely *cough* Coalition are up for talking (or 'promoting' as the Tories often call it) about homosexuality in schools. Homosexual relationships are also relationships, right? I just hope that when the government say they wish to teach children about healthy relationships they emphasise the different relationships in society, it'd be sad if they didn't.
And...whilst I'm here... (this does actually link, I'm not going completely off topic)
Anyone who has had to talk to me for the past week will know how much I've been chatting on about Sweden and how jealous I am of their fabulous country, and I'm about to do it again, so sorry to those of you that are already sick of this. Sweden start teaching Sex* Education between the ages of 7 and 10, incorporating lessons about sex and relationships into other parts of the curriculum. Sweden has one of the lowest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world, with less than 7 births per 1000 teenagers. So surely, because Britain hates teen mothers**, it would make sense to establish better sex education (and whilst I'm ranting I may as well say, compulsory sex education) from an earlier age. Although, the downside is, the chances of us getting younger children to learn about healthy relationships and the right-wing press not overreacting to the idea of sex (even though it isn't sex) is so slim *rolls eyes and sighs at ridiculousness of this country*. They -the right-wing press- hinder so much progression, it's really frustrating.
I'm done now, you can all get on with your merry lives.
* It's not really anything to do with sex, not that that'll stop the right-wing press over here if anything like this was established in the UK
** There hasn't actually been that much of an increase in the teen pregnancy rate at all over the past 30 years. It's just another moral panic. Oh, and for what it's worth, our sex education is a lot better than the U.S.A's, at least...
True.
