Ms Maeve Taylor:

In response to the question from Senator Joe O'Reilly and the comments from the Chairman about FGM, the Irish Family Planning Association runs an FGM treatment clinic funded by the HSE for women in Ireland who have experienced FGM. When we look at the issues of girls in education, women in the workforce and issues like FGM and child marriage, I am prompted to think about some of the titles of United Nations Population Fund reports in recent years that have focused on girls at ten years of age and adolescent pregnancy. In focusing on how we get women to the table, we must look back at the lives of girls and how we ensure girls can stay in education, are safe from gender-based violence and are not grappling with unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections such as HIV when they are adolescents but are able to plan their lives and futures. One of the core issues is access to reproductive health services and information and sexuality education. In 2019, we held a civil society dialogue in advance of the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development..

At a time when we used to be able to pack rooms with people and have them thronging around tables - it seems like a very long time ago now - at every single table there were individuals working on development issues and thematic issues relating to the LGBT community. Those people included youth and health workers, and policy influencers. At one point, everyone in the room was talking about sexuality education. They were discussing issues such as their experience of poor sexuality education in Ireland as young people, their frustration about their children not having access to quality education in schools now or their understanding of the ways in which denial of sexuality education globally impacts on a girls' capacity to flourish. Focusing in on those issues relating to girls and adolescents and how we build forward better and get women to the table is critical.