Debate contribution: Relationships and Sexuality Education

Debate contribution by Ms Kate Nicholl on 22 April 2024.

MLA

Ms Kate Nicholl

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

22 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Relationships and Sexuality Education

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4484679

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

I am grateful to have the opportunity to open the debate on this motion, a debate that will, no doubt, spark some passionate views across the House but one that I hope we can conduct with the respect that is due. The first time that we discussed anything to do with relationships and sexuality at my secondary school was in a biology class on reproduction. I was 15 years old, and we all knew what was coming. The teacher very slowly retrieved the video from the store and regretfully slotted in a VHS and pressed play. Some psychedelic kind of sperm went across the screen. We had to endure that a second time, and, on both occasions, a child fainted. I remember thinking at that time that this was not the relationships and sexuality education (RSE) that we needed or that we wanted. Having come from Zimbabwe, it struck me how vastly different my experience had been there. At my primary school, we were given access to age-appropriate education on healthy relationships, which, given the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, was, quite literally, a life-saving policy decision. Then I arrived in Northern Ireland, and, as a young person, the system baffled me. That is why we have brought this motion to the House today. It is long past the time that we gave young people the right to access comprehensive RSE as a means of empowering and preparing our young people for the realities of life. It is not just regrettable that so many have missed out on this education; as I will set out, I believe that it is negligent. In 2018, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women recommended that the UK Government:

"Make age-appropriate, comprehensive, and scientifically accurate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights a compulsory component of the curriculum for adolescents".

The intervention from the Secretary of the State while this place was down was an important step in the right direction, but there remains significant variation amongst schools in how RSE is taught, what content is covered and when it is covered. The current guidance also allows parents to exclude their children from crucial lessons on a range of subjects, including LGBTQ topics, sexual health, pregnancy prevention and access to abortion, thereby diluting the education received by our young people. The reality is that RSE topics are interlinked and that limiting access to parts of the course leaves young people vulnerable to misinformation. An effective RSE curriculum, tailored to stages of development, should impartially teach age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate content. Far better for young people to be able to ask a trusted adult their questions than have to seek the answers elsewhere, often on the internet. A study by the Belfast Youth Forum found:

"73 per cent of young people said they only received RSE ‘once or twice’ or ‘rarely’.",

and:

"60 per cent of young people felt that the information they received was either ‘not very useful’ or ‘not useful at all’."

In its recent report on learning for life and work (LLW), the Secondary Students' Union of Northern Ireland found that only 22·8% of young people surveyed felt that they had been adequately taught about consent. The opt-out provides for the potential dilution of children's rights by limiting their access to age-appropriate information about healthy relationships and sexuality, and we are opposed to such a measure on that basis. The rights of the child must always be the priority, and our children and young people want access to comprehensive RSE.

Yes.

The Member will note that the 2023 statement of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on article 5 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) sets out that:

"parents' responsibilities, rights and duties to guide their children is not absolute but, rather, delimited by children's status as rights holders".

Therefore, there can be no dilution of children's rights. I suggest to the Member that it is not really up to me to defend this. He needs to defend why he is not supporting it when the Children's Commissioner —

I am setting it out. I am just saying that the Member is not really qualified to give an opinion on it when all the evidence and all the experts say that this is what is needed. It is not just about forming healthy and safe relationships and understanding consent and being able to identify when you are being abused and knowing how to seek support. It is also about online safety. I hope that every Member cares about that. It is important that parents are equipped and confident, but that should not infringe on the rights of the child to access this education. Since becoming a parent, I have become more and more invested in ending child abuse. As a parent and as a legislator, I want to make sure that we all do our best to ensure that no child is subjected to abuse. We do not know how many children in the UK and Ireland are being abused, because it is mostly hidden from view and under-reported. Adults may not recognise when their children are being abused. A child may not know or understand. They may be ashamed or too scared to tell anyone. Children need to understand what abuse looks like so that they can get help. Without fact-based RSE, they could miss out on crucial information. For our children and young people, knowledge is power. I have been so inspired by an amazing woman called Haileigh Ashton Lamont, who waived her anonymity to speak out about the sexual abuse she received from the age of eight to 18. She was robbed of her childhood, and she had to fight the system for justice. Haileigh should not have had to go through any of that. I wonder how many people in our society are living in silence and have been harmed because they have not had the space to have safe and healthy discussions about relationships. Haileigh said that school kids grow up into adults and that:

"Having to accept what was done to us with our adult logic is almost more painful than the abuse that was masked as loving care."

Kids should grow up into adults with an understanding of RSE and the capacity to flourish and thrive, not having to heal from the past. So much harm has been caused by not preparing our young people, and it does not have to be that way; we can do something about it. Very much connected to this is the issue of online safety. We have to recognise the world that we live in. According to Ofcom, almost two thirds of 13-year-olds in the UK have at least one social media account. According to NSPCC research conducted before lockdown, one in seven children aged between 11 and 18 has been asked to send sexually explicit images and messages. That is abhorrent. One key part of tackling that horrendous situation is to ensure that all children have access to a standardised RSE curriculum that equips them to understand what healthy relationships look like and to recognise the signs of unhealthy relationships. There is so much on violence against women and girls, which my colleague Connie Egan will touch on. There is the whole-school approach. However, I want to give space to the words of two young people who are doing work experience in my office today. Cadence and Sameero said:

"As young people, we feel the lack of proper RSE curriculum has greatly affected our ability to make informed decisions in compromising situations. The absence of a reliable RSE has inevitably led to damaging consequences. The topic should be discussed freely to allow students and young people to express their own dilemmas without this stigma. RSE conversations should not feel taboo. We are entitled to access comprehensive and holistic education on relationships and sexual education instead of haphazardly scouring through the internet and exposing ourselves to dangerous content."

With the internet and social media, our children are accessing more harmful content and information than ever before. According to the NSPCC, they are likely to come across sexual images and videos at a younger age than their parents. Our children will be accessing information about relationships and sexuality; there is no doubt about it. The question for us today is how we believe that that education should be delivered. At worst, some say that we should leave it to the internet, with misinformation, fake news and damaging misogynistic and dangerous information setting the agenda or, at best, retain the current postcode lottery, with the quality of RSE depending on what school you attend. Instead, should we acknowledge the reality of our world and work to ensure that every child in Northern Ireland has access to inclusive, high-quality, evidence-based and age-appropriate relationships and sexuality education from trusted and safe adults that will empower and prepare them for the realities of life? To anyone who has been let down by our education system or has had to live in silence with what was inflicted on them, I am so sorry. We will fight for relationships and sexuality education that is befitting of the 21st century.

1,550 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:01 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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