Indian Church leaders want sex education to fight violence against women

January 18, 2013 - Catholic Church leaders in India are continuing to recommend sex-education programmess in schools as a response to public outrage over rape and exploitation of women. “Sex education is very important,” Father Anthony Charanghat, a spokesman for Bombay archdiocese, told the Vatican’s Fides news service. He disagreed with the city’s police chief, who said that sex-education programs could aggravate India’s problems, noting that violence against women is higher in countries that have sex-education programmes in the school curriculum. Father Charanghat countered that a proper sex-education programme would decrease the danger of violence against women. Such a program, he said, “has to be centered on the value of the body and on respect for every individual.” He said Bombay archdiocese has promoted sex-education programmes.