No Sex Ed, No Romeo-Juliet: Why India's Curriculum Betrays POCSO Reforms

The Romeo-Juliet clause, as suggested by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, aims to protect teenage relationships, as the name itself indicates. However, in the absence of comprehensive sex education among adolescents, how they are expected to make an informed decision about consent remains a valid question that the apex court does not address.

The Supreme Court has asked the Central Government to introduce a 'Romeo-Juliet' clause as an exemption in the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) to protect innocent adolescent relationships from criminal prosecution and stop the abuse of POCSO. Justice Sanjay Karol observed that, "POCSO cases filed at the behest of a girl's family objecting to romantic involvement with a young boy have become commonplace and consequent thereto these young boys languish in jails." The court also noted that there are numerous instances where this law is used by families in opposition to relationships between young people.

In reality, Indian schools teach little to nothing about consent or healthy relationships, while parents often fail to create a safe environment for adolescents to discuss sexuality due to social stigma and cultural sensitivities. Collectively, this leaves adolescents alone, confused and without guidance at a critical stage of development. In this context, the POCSO Act has increasingly been weaponised by families to punish adolescents for consensual relationships. Moreover, there are very few confidential counselling services available for adolescents who are trying to understand relationships and their emerging sexuality. Support systems that can help families cope with these generational changes are also almost absent, except within traditional and often conservative community setups. Unless the state invests in improving these social services, prioritises education and counselling over a primarily police-driven response, and makes suitable changes to the law to allow this approach, the legal system will continue to leave young couples exposed to family backlash and unnecessary criminal proceedings.

These POCSO reforms stand meaningless without comprehensive sex education. India wants to fix the symptoms by adding the clause but ignores the cause. The Indian Education System has failed to provide comprehensive sex education. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 makes ambiguous references to important topics such as consent, healthy relationships, STD prevention, family planning, etc, encompassing this content under broad categories like 'ethical and moral reasoning' rather than being treated as a distinct, structured subject. This leads to the dilution of its effectiveness and leaves critical concepts underexplored in practice.

Many Indian schools provide minimal to no sexual education, often limited to its biological aspects only, with vague and frowned-upon teaching methods. Without a properly mandated, detailed and appropriate curriculum which is supported by teacher training and parental engagement, the policy gap will persist. This undermined the very premise of reforms like the Romeo-Juliet clause, as adolescents will continue to be deprived of foundational knowledge relating to consent, bodily autonomy and healthy relationships. This leaves adolescents vulnerable to both familial control and to the coercive force of criminal law.

This failure is further fuelled by active state resistance. Several Indian states, including Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, have refused to implement sex education programmes in schools, often after parental or political leaders protest, citing inappropriate content or against local values. At the same time, the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognised the importance of sex education. In X v. State of U.P., the hon'ble court has accentuated the importance of sex education in school curriculum from younger age. Yet, without proper guidance and reliable source, adolescents rely on unverified sources such as pornography, WhatsApp forwards, which leads to misinformation, wrong perception and heightened vulnerability to exploitation and unsafe practices.

A look at practices in the United States and the United Kingdom shows a clear contrast with the Indian approach. In India, consent is rarely addressed in school education, and the law tends to respond only after an offence has occurred. This heavy reliance on criminalisation has raised concerns about the growing misuse of the POCSO Act, while doing little to build early understanding or prevention.

In comparison, the US and UK focus on education before harm occurs. Consent is taught in an age-appropriate manner throughout the school years. In the US, Title IX promotes the idea of affirmative consent, often summed up as "yes means yes." Similarly, the UK mandates Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education from the age of 11. Such early and structured education can help in a significant reduction in the incidents of sexual abuse, demonstrating that preventive education is more effective than addressing the harm only through later criminal sanctions.

In contrast, the opposition to comprehensive sex education is often defended in the name of culture and societal values, but this reasoning does not hold up. Age-appropriate programmes can work without causing social unrest, as seen in states like Kerala and Bihar, where UNFPA-supported modules have been implemented. In these regions, initiatives like the Adolescence Education Programme have gained community acceptance by engaging religious and local leaders to frame health education within existing cultural contexts. The issues like parental backlash can be addressed through parent-orientation initiatives. The Hon'ble court has already recognised the importance of sex education. Furthermore, treating the Romeo-Juliet clause as a silver bullet is injudicious. An exemption without ensuring that adolescents understand consent remains an incomplete measure and offers limited protection.

If we truly aim to protect these adolescents, reforms cannot stop at introducing such legal exemptions alone. The Right to Education Act must be amended to make comprehensive sex education mandatory for students from class VI to XII. NCERT should include age-appropriate modules starting with puberty and bodily changes and gradually covering consent, autonomy and healthy relationships. A specific portion of the education budget should be set aside for training teachers, so these topics are handled with sensitivity and competence. Further, the proposed Romeo–Juliet clause under POCSO should be linked with access to such education, allowing courts to take this into account. Finally, regular monitoring through NCRB and education department data is necessary to ensure that these reforms are actually implemented.

Legal exemptions on their own are not a substitute for education. An uninformed consent cannot be considered meaningful. Both the centre and the states need to take concrete steps to institutionalise comprehensive sex education; otherwise, the reforms to POCSO will remain fragmentary, ultimately betraying the very child rights they seek to protect.

The Author Is A Law Student At Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University, Lucknow

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