The Ministry of Education’s Health and Physical Education textbook for grade 11 students claims that young girls who are victims of rape may also be held responsible for being raped because of their irresponsible behaviour in some cases. In the book, rapists are described as people who can have “mental illnesses” or as “behaving very irresponsibly”.
It goes on to state that a (rape) victim’s biggest concern would be having an unwanted pregnancy, and adds that the pregnancy would affect her school life or career and may also lead to a child being born malnourished or dying at an early age.
The contents of the textbook were brought to light after it went viral on social media, sparking backlash against the Ministry of Education.
We spoke to a few personalities for their expertise on the matter.
The mental impact
For the longest time, mental health professionals have been advocating to include sex education in Sri Lankan school textbooks as a vital learning for adolescents. The objective of sex education is to educate youngsters on topics such as safe and healthy sexual practices, consent, sexually transmitted illnesses, and/or the legal consequences of criminal sexual behaviour, etc.
Expressing her thoughts on the matter, forensic psychologist Dr. Raneesha De Silva commented: “As much as it was encouraging to learn about the Government’s efforts to include sex education in the school syllabus, it was extremely disheartening to witness the outcome of it heavily influenced by distorted social and gender norms, which encourages ‘rape culture’ in Sri Lanka.
“This ‘rape culture’ is further enabled by describing perpetrators of sexual crimes as ‘mentally unstable’ and therefore, their actions as not preventable.”
She explained that there is no research evidence to support the claim that there is a “definite causation relationship” between mental health difficulties and sex crimes. Additionally, “irresponsibility” has no legal grounds in alleviating the seriousness of someone’s crimes either. “It is only equivalent to the colloquial phrase ‘boys will be boys’, which in turn further normalises harmful sexual behaviour,” she stated, adding that despite the gender, age, and relationship status of the victim or perpetrator, sexual crimes are one of the highest forms of violence. Speaking about how this culture can be overridden, she commented: “To overcome the current sexual violence crisis in Sri Lanka, it is important to not only provide appropriate sex education to adolescents as a preventive measure but also address distorted cognitions (re: ‘safe and healthy’ sexual behaviours) of at-risk or convicted sex offenders, as a post-measure to reduce recidivism.”
Arnaha Centre for Wellbeing Director and Psychologist Dr. Kavita Amaratunga Perera shared her insight on how she thinks this would play a role in how a child’s mind develops over the years: “Of course comments such as the one made would have an impact on anyone’s mind including children. Children in the general population will grow up believing the false sentiment that victims must be blamed for atrocious acts such as rape.” Therefore, she added, if they do encounter abuse, it can lead to them not disclosing the abuse to caretakers, which can be a dangerous thing.
Upon the question of how this could affect the mind of a child that has gone through sexual abuse, she explained: “For children who have been abused, comments such as the one in the textbook are going to obviously be very triggering. Victim blaming often leads to an increase of mental health challenges including PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, etc. in those who have been abused.” She expressed that this can have an impact on their future relationships, personality, and other aspects of their life as well.
Revision of the book is required
The message given in this textbook tends to misrepresent the gravity of rape or penetrative sexual assault (PSA), stated former Ministry of Education Secretary and Education Forum Sri Lanka (EFSL) Co-Founder Dr. Tara de Mel. She added that the facts that rape is a grave and heinous crime, and a violation of basic and fundamental rights of an individual, leading to multiple, serious consequences that are sometimes irreversible, are not highlighted in this book. Moreover, she added: “The victim of rape is indeed a victim – and there’s no way that any portion of the blame can be placed on the victim, or even remotely suggested in any manner. This aspect is not highlighted nor is the fact that everyone should be thoroughly empowered to take perpetrators of rape to task since it’s a criminal offence where the prosecution can take place if the case is adequately pursued.” She also suggested that schools should educate students thoroughly on rape during sexual and reproductive health lessons, particularly to educate students on its criminal nature and all possible measures available within our legal system to prosecute perpetrators. “Girls and boys should be equally educated on all these facts.”
On the question of how one may update this book in such a way that students understand how grave rape is, she commented: “Undoubtedly the book needs substantial revision, at least in this section. The book should include, among other essentials, comprehensive sexuality education, including skills-based training in facing coercion and in refusing unwanted sexual encounters.” De Mel explained that the risk factors for perpetrating PSA include attitudes associated with hostility towards women, hyper-masculinity, traditional gender stereotypes, and acceptance of violence.
When massive hormonal upsurge is the norm during teenage and adolescent years, the temptation towards sexual experimentation becomes very common. “Innocence and lack of education in critical areas connected to physiological sexual maturation can lead to unfortunate and sometimes dangerous incidents. Hence, there is the need for schools to be very thorough when educating young students on all these aspects,” she stated.
De Mel believes that a lot of excellent work has been done in this area by many professionals (both locally as well as from reputed institutions overseas), so that re-inventing the wheel by writing new material may be unnecessary. Most importantly, she added, the teachers who will be teaching this “subject” will need special training by experts, so that they will understand how best to convey these messages, bearing in mind the context of a modern and fast-developing world that adolescents are living in.
What does the law say?
iProbono Lawyer and Equality Director Aritha Wickramasinghe, who initially brought this issue to light, highlighted the fact that such vile statements actually help the spread of rape culture and seem to almost justify rape. “It’s the Government’s responsibility to correctly teach children sexual and reproductive health and that should include teaching them about consent, especially to boys.” He firmly stated that victim shaming only perpetuates the culture of rape in Sri Lanka, and added that the Government and Sri Lankan authorities need to be held responsible for the kind of culture they are preaching.
When asked if there is anything the law can do to remove such statements from the textbook, he commented: “We can only petition to the authorities and the Education Ministry to remove these statements, but unfortunately nothing more can be done.”
