The relevance of sexual rights in family and schoolbased sexuality education in Switzerland

The research project “Untersuchung zu sexuellen Rechten als Grundlage der Sexualaufklärung in der Schweiz – Konzeptionen von Eltern, Jugendlichen und professionellen Akteurinnen und Akteuren der Sexualaufklärung” (Investigation into Sexual Rights as a Basis for Sexuality Education in Switzerland – The Conceptions of Parents, Adolescents and Professional Actors) is based on a qualitative study that examined the views of parents, adolescents and professionals involved in sexuality education. On the one hand, the project aimed to determine what parents, adolescents, teachers and professionals understand about sexuality education at home and at school, and how they convey or receive it. On the other hand, the study sought to clarify how relevant sexual rights are for the above-mentioned participants and what significance they attach to these rights in their sexuality education practise (Kunz, Koschmieder & Jacot-Descombes, 2023).

The research interest was based on two opposing international and national lines of development in institutionalised sexuality education, which run parallel and relate to each other. More recently, the Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe (WHO & BZgA, 2011) led to a professional consolidation at the international level, based on a holistic view of human sexuality: Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE), based on human rights (IPPF, 2010; WHO & BZgA, 2011; pro familia, 2012, 2013; BZgA, 2021). This new concept expands the focus from teaching the biological facts of human reproduction and prevention as protection against the negative consequences of sexuality to teaching sexuality education with a positive and comprehensive approach, considering topics such as relationships, gender, intimacy, sexuality, ethics and human rights.

These contents form the building blocks of sexuality-related human rights or sexual rights. Sexual rights comprise the framework and prerequisites for ensuring that all humans have the same opportunities for a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, so that they can have satisfying and safe sexual experiences free from coercion, discrimination and violence. The WHO (2006) defines respecting, protecting and guaranteeing these rights as synonymous with achieving and maintaining sexual health. Various studies on sexual-health issues have confirmed this claim to the validity of sexual rights in recent years. They show that women, men and adolescents who develop and implement the egalitarian gender norms and relationships demanded in sexual rights are physically and mentally healthier and have a higher level of sexual well-being (Braeken, 2011; Population Council, 2009).

Against this backdrop, for some years, both the United Nations and the Council of Europe have considered institutionalised sexuality education as a human rights instrument for realising the right to access to the highest attainable standard of health for children and adolescents (UN Human Rights Council, resolution A/HRC/RES/22/32, 2013, point 17a; Mijatović, 2020).

Backlash occurred during the political debates in Switzerland in connection with establishing human rights-based sexuality education in schools, which is orientated towards the living environment of children and adolescents and aimed at promoting and maintaining health. In particular, the WHO/BZgA (2011) Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe did not go unchallenged. These standards are available in Switzerland as a generally accepted norm in German, French and Italian translations and form a professional reference for sexuality education in Swiss schools that transcends language barriers. Nevertheless, value-conservative groups saw and still see this as “early sexualisation of children” or “decomposition and disintegration of the traditional family” (www.schutzinitiative.ch). In one dispute, the Swiss Supreme Court ruled that sexuality education interferes with parents’ right to raise their children, though it considered this interference to be justifiable, as this education does not impose any particular behaviour and the main responsibility for sexuality education remains with the parents. The court found that sexuality education is generally suitable to protect children from sexual assault (Schweizerisches Bundesgericht [Swiss Federal Supreme Court], 2014). The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) subsequently supported this verdict; it backed sexuality education, saying that no fundamental rights were being violated by obliging children to take part in the relevant lessons (European Court of Human Rights [ECtHR], 2018). Nevertheless, these value-conservative groups continue their work against human rights-based, institutionalised sexuality education at various levels (see, for example, the website www.schutzinitiative.ch).

Their criticism focusses in particular on value orientation. For them, the concept of sexual rights implies highly problematic content, such as the equal representation of sexual and gender diversity, information on pregnancy termination and interventions in natural reproduction. For them, the family should be the first and only authority when it comes to education and teaching values; further, heterosexuality should also be the social norm promoted in sexuality education at school (Kessler et al., 2017, pp. 49-64).

The same groups also regularly criticise the fact that school-based sexuality education based on the Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe omits the values of a broad majority of the population and does not reflect the everyday reality of most parents and children. On the contrary, they claim, it ideologises children and young people and thus contradicts the ban on indoctrination in schools (www.schutzinitiative.ch).

Evidence-based data providing information on the everyday practise of family sexuality education and the content thereof have been largely unavailable for Switzerland. Furthermore, at the time of planning in 2015/2016, there was no research on the relevance of sexual rights as the basis and content of sexuality education in families and schools, either in Switzerland or internationally.

Against this background, the Geneva and Lucerne Universities of Applied Sciences and Arts commissioned and collaborated with Sexuelle Gesundheit Schweiz (SGCH, Sexual Health Switzerland) to form a research network to develop a common knowledge base for all three language regions of Switzerland. The research period ran from 2015 to 2018. The research strove to collect data for the first time in Switzerland on the concepts and practise of family sexuality education for parents and adolescents. These data were then complemented with data on sexuality education in schools collected from teachers and professionals. A particular research interest of the study was the relevance of sexual rights in the value system of the parents, adolescents and professionals surveyed; this is discussed in more detail below.

Our study defined three focal points and formulated corresponding research questions. Here, we present only the last focus: the relevance of sexual rights. How do parents, adolescents and professionals perceive sexual rights, and what significance do sexual rights have in their sexuality education?

Our exploratory study employed a qualitative design and was conducted in the three language regions of German-speaking, French-speaking and Italian-speaking Switzerland. The implementation occurred in two stages. The first stage, from 2015 to 2016, focused on the sexuality education of parents and adolescents in their families. We conducted a total of 27 guided individual interviews with 14 mothers and 13 fathers who had at least one child between the ages of 13 and 16. In addition, we interviewed 70 young people of this age using case vignettes in 14 gender-segregated focus groups with four to six participants each.

In the second stage, from 2017 to 2018, we analysed the formal sexuality education in the context of public schools. This segment focused on the views of teachers and sexual health professionals. Using guided individual interviews, we surveyed 24 teachers and specialists with a mandate to provide sexuality education at the lower secondary level, again in the three language regions. We based our data analysis of both stages on qualitative, summarising content analysis according to Mayring (2010).

We are only now publishing the empirical data we collected between 2015 and 2018 because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, to minimise the relevance of the time gap, this publication mirrors them against the current state of knowledge. No new empirical survey on the subject of the study has been conducted in Switzerland in the meantime. Our French-speaking colleagues did publish their paper on our joint research project earlier under the title “Droits humains et éducation sexuelle. Contexte, perceptions et pratiques” (Charmillot, Földhazi & Jacot-Descombes, 2021, Human Rights and Sexuality Education. Context, Perceptions and Practises).

We used the IPPF Declaration of Sexual Rights as the survey instrument for our research work. The currently valid version of this declaration in German dates from 2009 and formulates the comprehensive claim to guarantee the sexual rights of every human being. Sexual rights include children and adolescents because they take into account their ability to develop. In concrete terms, this means the free and unrestricted self-determination of women, men, children and adolescents over their bodies and lives. Gender and sexuality should no longer be the cause of inequality, stigmatisation and discrimination.

The declaration contains a preamble, general principles and a catalogue of ten derived sexual rights, divided into rights to promotion, protection and participation. Article 1 formulates the universal validity of human rights regarding the inherent human dignity of all people and grants protection against discrimination based on sexuality, sex or gender. It is followed by Article 2, which concerns the universal right to participate in human development, likewise irrespective of sex, sexuality or gender. Articles 3 to 5 regard the protection of physical, psychological and sexual integrity, the right to privacy, in particular to sexual self-determination and recognition before the law, regardless of sex, sexuality or gender. Article 6 formulates the right to freedom of expression and assembly regarding sexuality and gender-related issues. Articles 7 and 8 formulate economic, social and cultural rights, particularly regarding sexual and reproductive health and education. Article 9 concerns the right to freely decide in favour of or against marriage and reproductive rights. Article 10 formulates the right to accountability, redress and reparation for victims of sexuality- and gender-related human rights violations.

Overall, sexual rights, at least regarding their content, are the subject of sexuality education at home and school. Parents usually address sexual rights implicitly. This is reflected in the adolescents in the focus groups, who demonstrated an implicit knowledge of sexual rights. The professional educational system in the context of sexuality education at school addresses sexual rights both implicitly and explicitly. The professionals we interviewed with a specialist title in sexual health in education and counselling (original: Fachtitel sexuelle Gesundheit in Bildung und Beratung [SGCH]) described sexual rights as an explicit subject of their work, understood as comprehensive, human rights-based sexuality education (CSE).

Accordingly, the school’s sexuality education is largely based on the children’s and adolescents’ knowledge of the world and the value system of family sexuality education. It thus proves to be compatible with family education regarding content. The argument forwarded by value-conservative groups that schools teach something different from family education is not cogent in light of our findings (see Kessler et al., 2017, pp. 47-49). On the contrary, schools teach children and adolescents what they already know in a different form – usually in an orderly, knowledge-based and pedagogically-didactically reasonable manner. Expanding the knowledge of children and adolescents means providing support for them to cope with the developmental tasks of childhood and adolescence and thus represents a contribution to sexual socialisation.