The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has approved a recommendation urging member States to guarantee comprehensive sexual education from early ages, both in public and private educational centres and in non-formal education settings. Presented as a measure to protect minors from sexual violence, the initiative has drawn objections from family-rights organisations, which warn of a possible reduction in parents’ capacity to decide on the moral and sexual formation of their children.
The document, identified as CM/Rec(2026)14, was adopted on 14 October and is titled Protection of children from violence through age-appropriate comprehensive sexual education. Although it is not legally binding, it proposes a common framework for European governments to develop these programmes and evaluate their implementation.
The Ordo Iuris Institute, a Polish legal organisation specialising in fundamental rights and family protection, published a critical analysis of the text on 30 October. Its author, Julia Książek, argues that the recommendation formally recognises parents as the primary educators, yet does not guarantee them effective participation in decisions on content.
Parental consent at the centre of criticism
One of the most contested aspects is the role the recommendation reserves for families.
According to Ordo Iuris’s analysis, the document provides that parents receive information about sexual-education programmes and the entities responsible for delivering them. However, it does not expressly require that they authorise their children’s participation or that they may intervene in the development of the contents.
Książek considers that this approach replaces cooperation between families and educational institutions with a relationship in which parents are limited to being informed.
Concern focuses especially on section 8.2, which presents exemptions from these programmes—including those recognised by national legislation—as an element that could weaken the protection of minors from violence.
For Ordo Iuris, this orientation raises difficulties from the perspective of parents’ right to educate their children in accordance with their religious and philosophical convictions.
The organisation recalls that Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights obliges States to respect those convictions in the exercise of their educational functions.
The institute also believes the recommendation could conflict with certain guarantees recognised by the Polish Constitution.
Ordo Iuris warns of an expansion of the Lanzarote Convention
The recommendation is based on the Lanzarote Convention, a Council of Europe treaty aimed at protecting minors from sexual exploitation and abuse.
However, Książek maintains that the new document goes beyond the obligations established in that convention.
Article 6 of the Lanzarote Convention provides that children receive information on the risks of sexual exploitation and abuse, as well as on means of protection, during primary and secondary education and in cooperation with parents.
The new recommendation, according to the legal analysis, broadens that approach by proposing the start of sexual education from an “early age,” without setting a specific age, and by extending the contents to issues related to personal relationships, sexuality and sex.
It also envisages the application of these programmes outside formal education, including non-formal education settings in which private entities may participate.
Ordo Iuris further questions references to sexual and reproductive health, gender identity and expression, and the Istanbul Convention, considering that they introduce controversial issues into an instrument intended to prevent violence against minors.
Nevertheless, the institute acknowledges some positive elements in the document, including the affirmation that parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children, the rejection of any justification for abuse committed by adults in positions of authority, and the identification of pornography as a risk factor.
What effectiveness do these programmes have in preventing abuse?
The analysis also questions whether there is sufficient evidence to support all the expectations associated with comprehensive sexual education.
Książek cites a 2016 Cochrane review, based on eight randomised trials involving more than 55,000 adolescents, which found no evidence that the examined school programmes reduced teenage pregnancies or sexually transmitted infections.
The institute also mentions a study published in Health Economics in 2020 that found an association between certain mandatory sexual-education programmes and an increase in teenage fertility.
These results, however, do not by themselves allow the conclusion that all sexual-education programmes have the same effects, since their content, methodology and context can vary considerably.
Regarding the prevention of child sexual abuse, Ordo Iuris acknowledges that another Cochrane review, published in 2015, found improvements in minors’ knowledge and in the reporting of abuse situations after participating in educational programmes. Nevertheless, that review did not conclusively establish that these programmes reduced the incidence of abuse.
The discussion, therefore, is not limited to the desirability of providing preventive information to minors, but also includes what contents should be taught, at what ages and with what level of family participation.
Catholic family associations call for respect for educational freedom
The Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe (FAFCE) also commented on the recommendation.
In a statement published on 19 October, the federation welcomed the Council of Europe’s recognition of parents as the primary educators, but warned that this recognition must be translated into concrete guarantees.
FAFCE called for families to be able to supervise the materials used, for the programmes not to be mandatory, and for both the starting age and the contents to have the approval of the parents.
The organisation maintains that the prevention of sexual abuse is a fundamental responsibility of institutions, but considers that it should not be used to displace parents from educational decisions.
A recommendation without the force of law, yet with follow-up mechanisms
The recommendation adopted by the Committee of Ministers does not constitute an international treaty and therefore does not directly impose new legal obligations on member States.
Nor does it expressly use the term “mandatory” in reference to comprehensive sexual education, despite the fact that a committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe had defended that possibility in June.
However, the document provides for follow-up mechanisms through which States must report on the measures adopted and the remaining difficulties.
Ordo Iuris warns that this procedure could generate institutional pressure on governments that maintain systems of voluntary participation or allow parents to request exemptions.