How European Union institutions sexualise children through Comprehensive Sexuality Education

MCC Brussels’ report Sexualising Children? is written by Dr Joanna Williams and examines how, in the past, sex education was a matter of biology. Now, sex education has expanded into a broader curriculum involving considerations about the ethics of relationships and social responsibility and now focuses on the broader concept of 'sexuality' rather than just 'sex'.

The report says that CSE amounts to a powerful moral intervention in children's lives worldwide that happens as a routine part of the school day. Lessons aim to shape children's attitudes and values in the most intimate sphere of their lives. The report argues that CSE aims to change children's attitudes and behaviours and, in this way, implement broader social change. As such, the global imposition of CSE unwittingly involves children in an explicitly political project.

At the launch, Dr Joanna Williams, author of the report, said: “Comprehensive sex education exposes children to highly sexualised and ideologically loaded content without their parents' knowledge or consent. This degrades education and undermines family life. That so many EU institutions have endorsed such practices is genuinely shocking. Schools should focus on transmitting subject knowledge, not political indoctrination, and leave parents to teach children about relationships. The EU has no right to interfere in the most intimate aspects of people's lives.”

Frank Furedi, Director of MCC Brussels, who commissioned the report, said: “Comprehensive sexuality education sexualises childhood and usurps the right of parents to manage their children's introduction to the world of intimate relations. EU institutions that have supported this indoctrination project have, in effect, violated the principle of subsidiarity. Sex education and the conduct of family life are the responsibility of sovereign member states, and the EU should not seek to displace the authority of national governments and parents on this very private and intimate dimension of children's lives.”

About the report

The report's key points say that CSE is a coordinated, well-funded, highly political project that extends globally. Driven by a small number of powerful international NGOs, it has successfully influenced national educational policies and practices within individual schools. In the process, it sexualises children and undermines the family, national sovereignty, and education.

Although CSE takes the form of 'sex education', the report's author says it is less concerned with teaching objective facts about biology and sexual reproduction than it is with bringing about social change through altering the private thoughts and intimate relationships of the next generation. CSE presents children as sexual beings while ignoring or criticising national legislation on the age of consent. Children are 'empowered' to consent to sexual activity, while lessons undermine reasons they may wish to avoid participation. Changes in values, attitudes, and behaviour are achieved through classroom practice that subjects the interior realm of the child to public scrutiny. When combined with undermining the family, there are good arguments to suggest CSE sexualises children and leaves them at greater risk of exploitation.

In conclusion, the report says that the global reach of CSE in societies with very different cultures and traditions indicates that this is a social engineering project designed to bring hyper-liberal values to societies that have not yet adopted such an approach. International NGOs deliver CSE without any form of public accountability. In this way, CSE is a form of moral imperialism that seeks to bypass democracy to change social attitudes and, in the process, colonise the minds of the next generation.

The report says for all these reasons, the institutions of the European Union must stop promoting CSE in schools. Although nations are sovereign when determining education policy, many international treaties compel the delivery of CSE in schools. When nation-states fail to comply, supranational organisations see national sovereignty as a barrier to promoting CSE. In Europe, the European Parliament and the Council of Europe expect member states to conform to obligations set out in international standards and adopt CSE as part of national curricula. Countries such as Hungary and Poland have failed to comply and are under considerable political and financial pressure. In December 2022, the European Commission announced it would withhold €22 billion of EU cohesion funds from Hungary until it altered laws prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality and transgender identities in schools.

Getting nations to enshrine CSE provision in law is a crucial goal of global NGOs. At the same time, they condemn national laws that run counter to Comprehensive Sexuality Education, the agenda they wish to promote. The European Parliament, for example, criticises member states for introducing legislation that stands in the way of CSE provision. In 2019, the Parliament condemned Poland's proposal to penalise 'public approval or encouragement of sexual activity of minors', arguing that it would 'lead to the effective criminalisation of sexuality education.' 

Read the full report here

Dr Joanna Williams

Author, researcher and journalist

Dr Joanna Williams is the founder and director of Cieo. Joanna Williams taught at the University of Kent for over ten years and was the director of Kent's Centre for the Study of Higher Education. Most recently, she worked as Head of Education and Culture at Policy Exchange.