Every Child Matters Conference Speech
14th May 2008
Good afternoon. My name is Leah Hobson and I’m the National Policy Officer for Blind Citizens Australia. Blind Citizens Australia (BCA) is the peak national advocacy organisation of and for people who are blind or vision impaired. Our mission is to achieve equity and equality by our empowerment, by promoting positive community attitudes, and by striving for high quality and accessible services which meet our needs. As the national advocacy peak body we have over 3000 individual members, branches nationwide and 13 affiliate organisations that represent the interests of blind or vision impaired Australians.
I’m here today to talk to you about sexual health education for people who are blind or vision impaired, but I’d like to start by putting this in the broader context of information access. Children and young people are often dependent upon the adults around them to provide information about the world. The quest to know how things work, what their function is or why people behave the way they do follows us from the time we are born and never really ends. But as the years go on, we are taught intellectual curiosity because we are encouraged to ask questions and have them answered. We are taught how to inquire in different ways about the world around us, by seeking information in books or online, by having conversations with others and by observing what happens in our environments.
Not all of these forms of information are available to all children. Among the 13,400 children in Australia counted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (1998) as blind or vision impaired, there are significant barriers to all three methods of inquiry I’ve just described. Reading a book requires Braille skill and materials, or large print copies of the text. Finding information online may require specialist software and a qualified adaptive technology instructor, assuming the information has been published in an accessible format in the first place. Having a discussion with a friend, family member or trusted adult requires that a child has the ability to independently find the person they want to talk to, then initiate and sustain conversation. Purely visual information, such as facial expressions, social interactions and physical presentation is especially difficult to pick up or replicate by providing it in alternative formats. In short, the getting of almost any kind of information has to be consciously facilitated by everyone around a child who is blind or vision impaired
Lack of information brought about through lack of access can cause any number of challenges. In classrooms, students may struggle to keep up in mathematics and geography. At home, they may not understand the pop culture references made by friends and family who get the visual joke. These problems can be overcome with dedicated, consistent help and the right physical resources. In many cases, such as those children who are vision impaired and among the 25% of students with disabilities who have trouble fitting in socially at school – that’s a figure from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2005 study – providing access to the right kind of help requires mindfulness of a child’s situation. Family members may want to protect their child from hurt, while teachers and peers may simply assume that it is appropriate to leave a child who is blind or vision impaired sitting alone in the corner of the room until someone is ready to help them enter into a game or a conversation.
These issues are complicated enough, but what happens when we encounter an area of life like sex and relationships which is often taboo, or requires us to convey information which may be uncomfortable to discuss?
There are many reasons why it’s important for all children – including children with disabilities – to have a clear understanding of sex, body image and relationships. The 2002 National Survey of Secondary Students, HIV/AIDS and Sexual Health found that a quarter of all Year 10 students have had vaginal intercourse; that number rises to half of all students in Year 12. Another study in New South Wales found that 86% of young people in a relationship lasting a year or less don’t use condoms every time they have sex. It’s clear that young adults are sexually active, and they’re at risk. If you’re wondering why I’m not using figures about youth who are blind or vision impaired, it’s because there aren’t any.
For younger children, there are concerns around abuse and neglect. While accurate figures regarding ‘real’ levels of abuse are difficult to come by and even reported figures may fluctuate with changes in policies or practices, it is known that children who are given accurate language to describe their bodies are more likely to report abuse if it occurs.
Beyond the physical risks of pregnancy, STIs and abuse, there’s also the not insignificant matter of how being in the dark about sex and sexuality can make a child or a young adult feel. Blind adults who have had a limited sexual education describe their bewilderment in vivid terms. At our National Convention last year, BCA held a session on sex and sexuality where some of these experiences were discussed. One woman said that she had always thought that her period which came from ‘the trunk of her body’ would cause lumps to go down her thigh which would be wrapped up in padding. Another described not understanding what pretty meant, what wearing matching clothes meant or what constituted a good body. That young woman solved the problem by feeling up mannequins in shops, which I’m sure we can all agree is not an adequate solution. A man who lost sight in his twenties talked about the lack of services to help him develop socialising skills when he lost his vision. As a twentysomething, he wanted the answer to that most important of questions: how was he to go to nightclubs and pick up women if he couldn’t see? Others made the point that this is even worse for gay people who are blind or vision impaired because gay culture tends to be particularly visual.
So what needs to be done to help young people who are blind or vision impaired to understand sex, sexuality and body image? Our solutions need to be appropriate, adaptable and comprehensive in nature.
However, there is a caveat I’d like to make first: breaking stereotypes and losing assumptions is the most important step. It’s been said a thousand times before and I’m sure it will continue to be said after today: people with disabilities should not be treated as sexless. That doesn’t just mean that children should be given the same age-appropriate information and aspirations, but that adults should treat the people with disabilities they come across as sexual beings too, when appropriate. One of our conference participants talked about their experience of walking into a big department shop and asking to be given s spray of sample perfume from the attendant offering some to passers by. “No,” said the stop assistant. “This is a young and sexy scent. It’s not suitable for you.” Having a positive self image is broader than simply providing for the next generation, it means making sure that what we do here and now aims for that outcome. How can we hope to provide a positive self image to a child who is vision impaired if the only media portrayals of blind adults are of demure and lonely people without real relationships?
On a more immediately practical level, let’s go back to those three criteria and talk about what’s appropriate. It’s helpful to look at the visual aspects of sexual health, sex and body image which might need to be re-worked to ensure that children who are blind or vision impaired have the same chance to understand them. Children who are blind or vision impaired may not be able to see the difference between boys and girls, for example. Some will not be able to see differences in dress, let alone physical features. This is where dolls and anatomically correct models can be useful. It’s important that any replacements remain as close to ‘real’ as possible. If you wouldn’t show a child who can see a cross-section of internal reproductive organs because it would be confusing, why show the same thing to a child who can’t see? For young adults, it may be useful to provide hands-on access to physical items such as condoms, tampons and sex toys.
It’s also important to remember the ‘do what you’d do for a sighted child’ rule when deciding how to relay information to a child who is blind or vision impaired. Is a sighted child being placed alone in a room with a teacher’s aide to learn the same thing as their peers are learning together? Of course not. Do the sighted children have their parents telling them what ‘hot’ might mean in terms of attraction to other people, or are they learning these things through magazines, friends and siblings?
Now let’s talk about making things adaptable and comprehensive. You’ll notice that I’ve been talking about sexual health, sex and body image throughout this talk. I’m doing that because while it’s useful to talk about a child who is blind or vision impaired being given the same opportunities as others, there are many reported instances of the education system treating ‘sex education’ as ‘reproductive education’. For children who are blind or vision impaired, it is vital that the education offered by parents, schools and service providers should cover all the information they need, not just the parts appropriate for sighted children. For instance, a child who is blind or vision impaired may need to be given a different set of coping mechanisms to deal with an immediate threat of sexual assault.
As things stand, even the ‘mainstream’ sexual education of school children is lacking; a conference earlier this year was told by the head of Queensland Family Planning that only 5 per cent of Queensland school children receive a comprehensive sex education. That statement, of course, doesn’t even begin to address the need for coordination between parents, schools and service providers in the case of children with disabilities to ensure a seamless response to their particular needs.
Obviously there are a whole range of issues at the heart of making sure that children who are blind or vision impaired can grow up to have positive body image and healthy and happy sexual relationships. How do we begin to reconcile individual outcomes and the systemic problems that cause so many issues? What sort of accountabilities should there be to make sure that kids really do get an appropriate, adaptable and comprehensive sex education? These are the questions we need to take away for discussion and collaborative work so that eventually answers might come.