The Socialist Party (PS) today accused the government of intending to regress over 40 years in matters of sexual education, calling for the mobilization of civil society to prevent these “extremely serious” changes in the Citizenship education curriculum.
“The government is preparing to make a decision that the PS considers very serious in terms of citizenship and sexual education. The first time this parliament approved a law on this matter was in 1984, and therefore, we are talking about a setback of decades in the appreciation of human rights, our children’s education, and sexual education,” criticized PS Deputy Vice President Mariana Vieira da Silva in statements to reporters at the parliament.
According to the PS deputy, it is “extremely serious that the government intends to take a step” that will make the country “go back more than 40 years” at a time when there is “an increase in inequalities between men and women and, particularly, between boys and girls” globally.
“There is currently a law from this Assembly of the Republic from 2009 that mandates sexual education to be part of both the disciplines’ programs and subsequently citizenship education in schools. We might be witnessing the start of a very serious process worsening public health crises in Portugal,” she warned.
The PS urges, according to Mariana Vieira da Silva, that the entire civil society participate in the “short public discussion” that the government has scheduled on the subject, which runs until August 1.
“Let us all mobilize to ensure human rights, sexual and reproductive rights, and the right to sexual education are not something of the past in our schools, but part of the present and the future,” she urged.
The PS deputy mentioned that, to her knowledge, “the government will not change anything in the law,” implying that “the program it will approve will not comply with the law approved in 2009.”
“And I emphasize, laws exist to be followed, and it’s not through a change in the curriculum that a law approved by this Assembly in 2009 ceases to be complied with,” she highlighted.
According to Mariana Vieira da Silva, in this “new phase” of the AD government, “it is surprising, worrying, and another sign of a clear alignment with Chega’s agenda” that Luís Montenegro’s executive aligns itself “with the more radical discourses on these matters, threatening decades-long national consensus and the work done in schools and health centers.”
BE leader Joana Mortágua also spoke to the journalists, calling for a “big movement” of parents and school communities against these changes.
“We cannot allow the government to instrumentalize children’s rights to compete for votes with the far-right and Chega. Sexual education is essential to prevent child sexual abuse; it is essential to respect children’s rights,” the former deputy stressed.
Joana Mortágua emphasized that “sexual education is a human right for all children and youth” and accused the executive of legitimizing “far-right conspiracy theories about sexual education content, trampling over all that are good practices, international recommendations, everything scientific, and everything proven regarding the importance of sexual education.”
“Children either learn these fundamental contents at school with professionals, or they will learn about them on TikTok with ‘influencers’, often not respecting and violating women’s rights and having unhealthy perspectives on these matters,” she cautioned.
