Pro-family advocates and legal experts are sounding the alarm after the Council of Europe issued a sweeping recommendation urging member states to impose “comprehensive sexuality education” from early childhood.
On October 15, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe formally adopted a “recommendation” titled, “Protection of children from violence through age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education.” Invoking the necessity of shielding minors from modern digital hazards and sexual violence, the 46-nation body called on European governments to mandate comprehensive sex education across all public and private schools as well as informal youth settings.
“The recommendation applies to all relevant contexts where comprehensive sexuality education can be taught and learned, including formal, non-formal and informal educational settings under the responsibility of public or private entities,” the recommendation reads. “Member States should adopt the necessary legal or policy basis for the inclusive and accessible provision of this education to all children. De jure or de facto exemptions to comprehensive sexuality education undermine the protection of children from various forms of violence.”
“Comprehensive sexuality education should be provided to children from an early age and on an incremental and iterative basis to reflect and support their growing and evolving capacities,” it continues.
The recommendation also asks member states to “seek to promote equality and non-discrimination of all children … as well as children with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, or sex characteristics; and any intersection of these factors.”
The text recognizes that parents have the “primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of their child” – a clause inserted exclusively due to pressure from the Italian government – but stops short of recognizing parental authority in educational decisions.
“Parents and other holders of parental responsibility should be provided with … information about the content, objectives, benefits and potential providers of comprehensive sexuality education so that they can increase their own knowledge and support the children within their care,” the document reads.
Legal analysts from the Warsaw-based Ordo Iuris Institute have argued that the recommendation radically exceeds existing treaty obligations.
“An honest application of this requirement leads to the conclusion that it is not parents exercising their constitutional right to decide on the upbringing of their children who weaken their protection, but rather the recommendation itself, which in the name of unproven efficacy attempts to deprive them of this right,” Julia Książek, an international law analyst at the Ordo Iuris Institute, commented.
The recommendation builds on the 2007 Lanzarote Convention, a Council of Europe treaty originally adopted to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse. While the treaty called on governments to provide age-appropriate information about abuse prevention, with parental involvement, Strasbourg is now using that mandate to justify a much broader sex-education agenda, including topics such as gender identity, gender expression, and sexual relationships from an unspecified “early age.”
Furthermore, legal scholars note that the council’s claim that such programs are strictly “evidence-based” is contradicted by robust scientific literature.
A comprehensive 2016 systematic review published in Cochrane encompassing over 55,000 adolescents established that school-based sex-ed programs are not effective in reducing teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted infections, while an extensive study published in Health Economics in 2020 linked compulsory sex education to higher teen pregnancy rates while showing that parental opt-out clauses specifically mitigated those effects, including abortions.
Catholic organizations across the continent are mobilizing against what they denounce as a form of totalitarianism. The Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe insisted that parents must retain absolute control over instructional materials and that sex education must never be made mandatory.
The move also collides directly with the directives of some national bishops’ conferences. In August 2026, the Polish Bishops’ Conference issued a solemn warning titled “The Young Person Deserves More,” according to which the state must assist the family rather than usurp its fundamental educational duties. While in Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin defended parents’ inviolable right to withdraw their children from state “relationships and sexuality education” and to seek for their children an education that provides a sound Catholic understanding of sexuality.