Q&A :: Teens under pressure
PR dla Zagranicy
Alicja Baczyńska
04.01.2014 16:27
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Q&A Sexual abuse P1.mp3
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Q&A Sexual abuse P2.mp3
Patchy sex education leaves girls exposed to exploitation, activists warn.
Poland echoes Europe's bleak statistics in sexual abuse, where nearly a half of the incidents involve underage female victims.
"The gender stereotype that a woman belongs to a man, and he has the right to her body [leads to the conviction] that violence isn't a problem," says Małgorzata Kot, member of the Ponton Group of Sex Educators in Warsaw. The stigmatising belief that the female victim of abuse "was asking for it" and provoked men to commit sexual activity leaves many women confused and unsure whether a crime was committed, she argues.
The inclusion of comprehensive sex education into school curricula, offering vital information on sex and healthy relationships, could help shield those vulnerable to exploitation, the Ponton Group believes.