Relationships: Abstinence, Age, Culture and Consent

1Why this matters

Relationships with family, friends and, as you grow older, romantic partners bring some of the greatest happiness in life. They can also bring pressure. Decisions about sexual behaviour made at 14 can affect your health, your education and your future for many years. This lesson gives you the facts and the words you need to make those decisions yourself, rather than letting someone else make them for you.

2Healthy and unhealthy relationships

3Abstinence

Abstinence means choosing not to have sexual intercourse. For adolescents it is the healthiest choice, for clear biological and social reasons:

• It is the only method that is 100% effective at preventing both pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.
• A young adolescent's body is still developing. Pregnancy in early adolescence carries higher risks for the mother and baby, including prolonged labour and complications during birth.
• Pregnancy or infection can interrupt education and change a young person's plans.
• Emotional readiness matters: a sexual relationship brings feelings and responsibilities that are hard to manage while still growing up.

Choosing abstinence is easier with a plan: know your reasons, spend time in groups, avoid being alone with a partner in isolated places, avoid alcohol and drugs (which weaken judgement), and practise refusal skills: say "no" clearly, give your reason, suggest something else to do, and walk away if the pressure continues.

4Age and the law in Rwanda

• Rwandan law treats anyone under 18 as a child. Any sexual act with a child is a serious crime called child defilement, whatever the child "agreed" to and whatever gifts were given.
• The legal minimum age for marriage in Rwanda is 21.

5Culture

Culture shapes how people think about relationships. Many Rwandan values protect young people: respect for yourself and others, family guidance, and dignity in how people treat each other. Some beliefs, however, can cause harm, for example the idea that a gift means a girl "owes" something, that a real man must prove himself sexually, or that sexual topics can never be discussed with parents. A useful test for any belief is: does it protect people's health, safety and dignity, or does it put someone at risk?

6Consent

Consent is a clear, freely given agreement to take part in an activity. For sexual activity, consent must be:

• Free: given without pressure, threats, tricks, gifts or payment.
• Clear: an active "yes". Silence, not resisting, or "I don't know" is not consent.
• Given by someone able to decide: old enough by law, awake, and not drunk or drugged.
• Specific and reversible: a yes to one thing is not a yes to everything, and anyone can change their mind at any time.

Being in a relationship, or having said yes before, never means consent now.

Worked example: is there consent?

Apply the four conditions (free, clear, able, reversible) to each case.

1. A boy keeps asking his girlfriend until she stops saying no and says nothing. No consent. Silence after repeated pressure is neither free nor clear.
2. A man buys a 16-year-old girl a phone and then expects a sexual relationship. No consent, and a crime. The gift is pressure, and the girl is a child under the law, so this is child defilement.
3. At a party, a young woman is too drunk to stand. No consent. A person who is drunk or asleep cannot decide.
4. Two friends agree to go to a football match together; halfway there, one decides to go home. This is a non-sexual example of the same rule: agreement can be withdrawn at any time, and the other person must respect it.

Practice