Sexuality education could tackle GBV

Strengthening and promoting comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in Namibian schools will not only boost tolerance and improve the lives of sexual and gender minority children, but will also address the scourge of gender-based violence.

It is estimated that every year 246 million children are subjected to some form of gender-based violence, including mistreatment, bullying, psychological abuse and sexual harassment in or on the way to school, and 25% of the children experience physical violence and 36% emotional violence.

Addressing participants at a three-day discussion on the implementation of comprehensive sexuality education in Namibian schools, Jean-Pierre Ilboudo, the Unesco representative to Namibia, said education is the “only true, long-term solution to gender-based violence”.

He emphasised that CSE must be high quality, age appropriate and evidence based, and when delivered well, promotes health and well-being, respect for human rights and gender equality, and empowers children and young people to lead safe and productive lives.

Ilboudo said a good CSE programme helps young people to understand that ideas about gender and gender stereotypes can affect how others are treated and they learn to define GBV.

“They also learn essential life skills such as empathy, negotiation, decision-making and critical thinking, encouraging them to question social and cultural norms that support unequal gender and power structures, which often lead to violence.”

The discussion is aimed at identifying opportunities and challenges in the school curriculum with regard to sexuality, including sexual and gender diversity, while also making visible and giving a voice for youth experiences around sexual and gender diversity.

Another goal is to identify strategies to strengthen pre- and in-service teacher training to respond to the curriculum statements on sexual and gender diversity.



Not in their favour

A 2018 review of a study of gender and sexuality diversity and schooling in five southern African countries, including Namibia, states: “While schools are often seen as sites of support, care and assistance and places where teachers and school principals are seen as making a difference in young people's lives, the reality is quite different when it comes to the lives of sexual and gender minority youth and adults who continue to experience discrimination and violence.”

The study highlights that gender and sexuality diversity in education in the region “are either largely ignored or the focus of hostility and bias across the region”, although there are “minor indications” that educators and policymakers are becoming more aware.

The review states that teaching and learning about gender and sexuality diversity is crucial to creating sustainable schooling environments because “the inclusion or exclusion of gender and sexuality diversity appears to be closely tied to levels of GBV in school systems, to gender equality more broadly, and to more inclusive and safe school systems”.

Although Namibia has in theory adopted “education for all” policies that recognise diversity along social, cultural and gender lines, the concept of gender in Namibia is still generally understood by traditional male and female concepts.

The authors add that the traditional understanding of gender roles and patriarchy in Namibia fuels gender violence in society and in schools.

“It is through these social roles that imbalances of power come into existence and levels of violence and bullying on the basis of gender and sexuality diversity are beginning to be reported in Namibia, thereby indicating that sustainable learning environments are being compromised by this ongoing discrimination.”



Silence

In a study on policy inclusion and experiences of self-identified homosexual youth in secondary schools in Namibia, Anthony Brown, a senior lecturer at the University of Johannesburg, writes: “The exclusion of learners from sexual minorities within the marginalised group list in the inclusive education policy, educational practices and silence in educational research denies them equal access to safety, protection and care.”

Brown's interviews with students found that Namibian schools offer an “abusive environment for homosexual learners” despite the inclusive education policy “rhetorically” advocating care and support for all learners.

“Findings show that the silence and invisibility of homophobia in education and the general benchmark of normativity of normative sexualities in Namibia generally are found to permeate violence and threaten safe and enabling learning environments of all learners.”

Brown describes Namibian secondary schools as “volatile environments for learners who do not conform to the normative genders. These learners are marginalised and pushed out of the classroom, school and curriculum activities.”

The authors of the five-country study write that the findings paint a “bleak picture and shows how homophobic bullying is not just prevalent in schools, but also perpetuated by learners, teachers and administrators who reinforce heteronormative and patriarchal ideologies through the silence and denial of alternatives to dominant heteronormative discourses.”

The research highlights the crucial role of teachers in helping to address the exclusion and silencing that currently exist around sexuality and gender diversity.

To do so, teachers would require professional development and support, as the implication is that they need to grapple with their own identities and their understandings of what is normative to become active agents in working towards the inclusion of sexual and gender diversity in Southern African classrooms.

JANA-MARI SMITH