Sir, – I was struck by the juxtaposition of Conor Gallagher's article "One in five sex crimes reported to gardaí involves minors as victims and suspects" (News, April 26th), and the three letters on the same date detailing reasons why single-sex bathrooms in schools should not be replaced with mixed-sex "gender neutral" toilets.
According to the CSO, 20 per cent of sex crimes reported to An Garda Síochána in 2020 involved minors as both victims and perpetrators. Despite the known issue of under-reporting of sex crime, particularly by younger victims, females under 18 reported the most sexual crime and 99.4 per cent of suspected offenders were male.
Single-sex bathrooms at school are vital in helping girls who have been through to the trauma of sexual crime feel safe and to participate in education.
The fact that in Ireland hundreds of young girls are experiencing sexual crime annually is one more reason why single-sex toilets in schools are vital. – Yours, etc,
LOUISE WHELAN,
Greystones, Co Wicklow.
Sir, – Regarding the Department of Education’s recommendation for mixed-sex toilets in schools, I wonder has it given enough consideration to the safety of girls?
According to an Irish Examiner editorial on the 2019 Annual Report from Cork’s Sexual Violence Centre, “The risk of sexual violence in schools and universities is so widespread as to be similar to a pandemic”.
Richard Hogan, clinical director of the Therapy Institute in Dublin, said online pornography is a huge problem in schools and he is treating more and more teenage boys with extreme porn addiction.
A National University of Ireland Galway survey published in 2018 reported that more than 53 per cent of boys in Ireland first watched porn under the age of 13. There is a strong indication that this exposure to pornography results in a hyper-sexual view of the world, reduction in empathy, objectification of women and a compulsion to recreate the dopamine rush of extreme pornographic sex in real life.
Data obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Sunday Times in the UK revealed that mixed-sex changing rooms are more dangerous for women and girls than single-sex facilities. Just under 90 per cent of complaints regarding changing room sexual assaults, voyeurism and harassment are about incidents in uni-sex facilities.
Why can’t the Department of Education turn its attention to these serious and urgent issues rather than wasting time and money designing mixed sex facilities that have the potential to make an already very bad situation even worse? – Yours, etc,
HELEN POSTMA,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Many of the objections to gender-neutral toilets raised by contributors to your letters page seem to centre around the use and disposal of period products. This surely gives rise to a deeper educational question. Isn’t it time we started teaching our children, regardless of gender, that menstruation is natural and normal, and not something to be hidden or by which anyone should be embarrassed? While such attitudes persist, many girls are as mortified around other girls as they are in the company of boys. – Yours, etc,
BERNIE LINNANE,
Dromahair,
Co Leitrim.