Teach kids gender empathy in schools

Earlier this month, during a hearing on the reported misuse of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, advocate Sandeep Deshmukh urged the Supreme Court to make it mandatory for all schools - government-aided or otherwise - to educate students on the 'folly and drastic consequences' of rape. This, Deshmukh elaborated, should mean children in schools being taught that violating another's privacy and dignity is not only wrong but is also a crime, and that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Driving home the point, especially to boys, that sexually abusing or assaulting someone is a serious crime is a workable, necessary idea. Driving out socially tolerated misogyny is another challenge that schools must take up.

Along with such awareness, schoolchildren - boys and girls - should be taught gender equality and sensitivity. Impressionable minds before reaching, or on the brink of, puberty have a far better chance of imbibing these values than their older counterparts. Also, with families susceptible to patriarchal moulding, biases, stereotypes and condoning, it is the school where planting these values has the best chance of taking root for future adults.

India recorded 29,670 rapes in 2023 - roughly 81 a day. Alarmingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, majority of perpetrators are known to survivors: family, friends and neighbours. Schools, government and private, must institutionalise this education, not as a one-off 'special class' or workshop, but as a subject on the lines of civics or moral science woven into the primary school curriculum. More than throwing numbers at them and teaching what is lawful and unlawful, it's necessary to inculcate in young Indians gender empathy. Let schools embrace this task in earnest.