Women's Views on News |
| Introducing the Schools Consent Project Posted: 15 Aug 2016 04:44 AM PDT
By Emily McFadden, a solicitor at Bolt Burdon Kemp. I attended training recently with The Schools Consent Project. I'll be going into schools as a volunteer lawyer to present workshops on the issue of consent, talking about the law of consent, and what consent means to young people. Currently, there is no comprehensive statutory curriculum for Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE), including sex education. In February 2015 the Education Select Committee recommended that PSHE be made statutory, to put it on an equal footing with other subjects. The Education Committee, along with the Chairs of the Health, Home Affairs and Business, Innovation and Skills Committees wrote to Secretary of State for Education, a post at the time held by Nicky Morgan, asking her to make it compulsory. Nicky Morgan refused to do so, saying that the problem with PSHE across the country was the quality of the teaching. Perhaps Justine Greening MP, the new Secretary of State, in her combined role of Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities, will re-address this in the coming months. Incredibly, schools are not required to teach children and young people about consent. Nor do they have to teach their young people about the emotional implications of sex. This means that many sex education lessons can be limited to the physical act of sex and contraception options. But there are so many other important parts to creating a healthy sexual relationship. The Schools Consent Project aims to fill this void. School teachers who see children and young people every day can often find it difficult to then address sex education and consent with them, which is one reason I think that young people having the chance to speak to an outsider, who really understands the legal position with regard to consent can be really helpful for both them and their teachers. Recent campaigns, including this one have tried to make the idea of consent easy to understand. But a YouTube video isn't enough. The Schools Consent Project workshops are designed to open up a discussion about consent and sexual relationships, to discuss common myths and misconceptions as well as common responses to disclosures of sexual assault and how these may or may not be helpful to the person disclosing. As a volunteer going into schools, I will be presenting the current legal position regarding consent. Legal issues of consent arise regularly in the media, and young people are bombarded with stories, making it hard to know the facts. We will be using activities to involve young people with consent issues currently in the media, or those they may have heard about or experienced. We'll be encouraging debate and discussion using activities and games in the workshops. The workshops are tailored to suit the young people to whom we'll be presenting and are always age-appropriate, and in gender-mixed classes unless we are in single sex schools. The language used in the workshops is accessible and inclusive of sexual orientations, so gender stereotypes and norms aren't presumed. I'm really glad that The Schools Consent Project deliver workshops to boys and girls together. It always seemed strange to me that in sex education classes boys and girls would be separated. I feel it defeats the object to talk about sex, relationships and consent and yet not open the conversation enough to have all students in the same room together to talk about it. In Sweden, the age of consent is 15 years old unless a person is in a position of trust, in which case it is 18 years old. In the UK, the age of consent is 16 years old. In Sweden, sex education has been compulsory since 1956. Children are given four one hour-long classes per week for between four and eight weeks. This is huge in comparison to the UK, and I think really reflects the importance society places in this education. In the USA, cases about consent have been dominating the headlines for a while now; Brock Turner being perhaps the most widely known recent example. Turner was convicted of sexually assaulting his victim on Stanford University campus. This case raised the issues of consent, the influence of alcohol, victim blaming and indecent images taken without consent. And then there were the comments made to the judge by the abuser's father who minimalised his son's behaviour by referring to it as "20 minutes of action". There is still a problem with sexual assaults being dealt with on campus by university authorities, rather than by the police. Programmes such as this BBC documentary on Fraternities expose some of the problems with consent on campuses. The Schools Consent Project workshops cover many relevant issues for young people, including: What is consent The Schools Consent Project has found that many young people particularly want to find out more about the law relating to sexting. Many have witnessed or experienced images being shared amongst classmates or online. Many have seen the media reporting cases of children and young people swapping images of each other both voluntary and otherwise, as well as conflicting news reports of the consequences. The Schools Consent Project workshops explain the law on sexting, as well as how this applies to social media platforms such as Snapchat, and how this may affect them. So far, The Schools Consent Project has reached 4000 children and young people throughout the UK, and has another 30 workshops lined up between September and November 2016 already. This is fantastic work considering the workshops have only been running since around a year ago. This just shows how much of a need there is and that schools and teachers really acknowledge this gap, and both want and need someone to fill it. It's great that The Schools Consent Project exists and I'm really pleased to be part of it, but I really feel that this should be compulsory throughout the country. Young people should not have to rely on volunteers to help them understand consent. It is crucial for them and for society as a whole that the issue of consent forms a natural part of their education and development. I hope that the Justine Greening will re-think the government's position on this soon. I'm really looking forward to getting into schools and meeting young people to discuss such an important issue, including some of the challenging and thoughtful questions I'm sure that they will ask… If you're interested in getting involved with The Schools Consent Project, including if you would like to become a volunteer lawyer, you can find out more here.  |
| TUC on how to fight racism after Brexit Posted: 15 Aug 2016 03:14 AM PDT
Unions, employers and the government must redouble their efforts to tackle the increase in racism following the vote to leave the European Union, new TUC report said. The UK has seen a major spike in reports of racist and xenophobic incidents since the referendum, with the National Police Chiefs' Council reporting a 57 per cent increase in hate crime in the days following the 2016 referendum. This was on top of the Home Office observing an 18 per cent increase in hate crimes in 2014/15, and charities reporting Islamophobic and anti-Semitic incidents more than doubling. And according to research from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), even before Brexit, racial and religious violence, harassment and abuse was not limited to online or on the streets: there were over half a million incidents of work related violence in 2014/15. This included being assaulted, or spat on, or being threatened with violence. A new TUC report released earlier this month, ‘Challenging racism after the EU referendum‘, has outlined a set of immediate actions that government, employers and trade unions can take to challenge and defeat racist behaviour. These proposals include closer monitoring of far-right activities, zero-tolerance policies in the workplace, and abolishing employment tribunal fees. The TUC recommends that the government adequately resource police and prosecutors to deal with hate crime; monitor and address far-right activity more closely; retain existing equality legislation in any post-Brexit review of legislation and improve protections at work, such as from harassment by clients or customers; abolish fees for employment tribunals, so that victims of discrimination at work can seek justice and develop a cross-departmental action plan to deal with racism. It recommends that employers adopt and promote zero-tolerance anti-discrimination policies, like that of Transport for London's well-publicised policy of prosecuting those who abuse staff; have an in-house system so that staff can report discrimination at work easily and be confident employers will take racism seriously; and work with unions to train and support staff. And it recommends unions train union reps on tackling discrimination at work; support BAME and migrant members to become more involved in branches; and survey members to gauge attitudes and identify concerns. Commenting on the report, the TUC’s General Secretary, Frances O'Grady, said: "Despite progress reducing xenophobia and racism in Britain, we are a long way from eradicating it. "And the recent surge in racist incidents since the Brexit vote is deeply disturbing. "We need to stand up for modern British and trade union values – respect for difference, dignity at work, and a deep opposition to racism and extremism. "Trade unions have long been a part of the fight against racism, but we can and should do more – as should the government and employers across the UK." To download the report, click here.  |
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