Comprehensive sexuality education is currently failing persons with disabilities
Comprehensive, accurate and inclusive sexuality education is a key component to fulfilling the reproductive rights of all persons. By providing comprehensive sexuality education, people are better equipped to make decisions about their sexuality and reproduction (e.g., they’re better able to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, and access or pursue sexual and reproductive health services). Yet persons with disabilities continue to experience a myriad of attitudinal, environmental and institutional barriers to comprehensive sexuality education in and out of schools.
Work completed by Impel in 2024 underscored the parlous state of comprehensive sexuality education that is typically available to persons with disabilities. In particular, that there is:
A considerable research gap around the implementation and effectiveness of disability-inclusive comprehensive sexuality education programmes (e.g., what works in different settings and/ or with different learners with disabilities).
A lack of agreement on minimum standards for inclusive comprehensive sexuality education curricula (including content and quality measures).
Poor participation by experts on sexuality education from within the disability community and/ or persons with disabilities, leading to curricula and training materials that are inaccessible, do not visibly represent persons with disabilities and do not address impairment-related sexual development.
Limited capacity among educators to teach comprehensive sexuality education to learners with disabilities, sometimes leading to the perpetuation of harmful assumptions and beliefs around the sexuality of persons with disabilities.
With the views, needs and interests of persons with disabilities missing entirely from curricula and resource development, how do we improve comprehensive sexuality education for persons with disabilities? Impel’s work in 2024 included ‘think tank’ meetings composed of experts focused on sexuality education for learners with disabilities (including those with lived experience), to recommend key actions and next steps. The experts in those meetings agreed upon 20 recommendations, broadly centred around: building the evidence base on ‘what works’ and creating a knowledge hub focused on good practice; equipping teachers to deliver comprehensive sexuality education to persons with disabilities (including through pre- and in-service teacher training and learning); enabling national-level policy-makers to foster disability-inclusive comprehensive sexuality education.
One key priority emerged in the margins of the think tank meetings that was deemed to be particularly urgent and impactful: a General Comment by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on Article 23 of the CRPD.
As of June 2024, there remains no General Comment from the Committee on Article 23 nor any Committee Statement that includes a focus on comprehensive sexuality education. Nor is there a clear, emerging stance in concluding observations promoting comprehensive sexuality education that is empowering to persons with disabilities. An analysis, published in 2017, of the Committee’s concluding observations found the Committee had maintained a protective stance toward persons with disabilities and their sexuality, focusing on preventing and mitigating violence and force instead of empowering persons with disabilities to safely and consensually express and act upon their sexuality; this stance persists.
A General Comment by the Committee on Article 23 will help to transform comprehensive sexuality education for persons with disabilities, including by providing rights-based guidance and setting high-level standards around comprehensive sexuality education.
Impel’s recent work shows comprehensive sexuality education routinely fails to empower persons with disabilities; clear guidance from the Committee would provide a strong, compelling basis for change.