All three Nationalist Party MEPs have abstained on a European Parliament report that included a call for compulsory sex education in schools.
The wide-ranging Rodrigues Report, titled ‘Empowering girls through education’, proposes actions to ensure all national education systems promote gender equality, challenge stereotypes, raise girls’ profiles and skills and improve their personal and professional development.
The report was approved by a 60 per cent majority of MEPs during a vote in Strasbourg on Wednesday. The three Maltese Labour MEPs voted in favour.
Nationalist MEP Therese Comodini Cachia told the Times of Malta the PN delegation abstained because of a clause encouraging member states to consider making “age-appropriate comprehensive sex and relationship education” compulsory for all primary and secondary schoolchildren.
This document would force us to go further than we have, as a society, decided so far
The clause notes the importance of sensitive and scientifically-accurate sexual education in empowering young people to make well-informed decisions, reducing unplanned pregnancies and preventing disease.
Dr Comodini Cachia, however, said Malta was already addressing issues relating to relationships at all school levels and that the EU was not empowered to determine national curricula.
She said decisions on sex education should be made by the national authorities, which were better placed to “assess the national demands” in relation to issues involving the family and personal development.
“We are not at all opposed to sex education at primary school level but this document would force us to go further than we have, as a society, decided so far,” she said.
Dr Comodini Cachia stressed that the delegation was nevertheless in favour of proposals contained in the report to address obstacles girls encountered in accessing education and progressing on career paths of their choice.
“We have also voted in favour of proposals which focus on addressing gender stereotypes and engaging education and educators in bringing about a culture change while actually seeking to address the employment-education disparity that exists,” she said
Labour MEP Miriam Dalli said the report was not legislative but stressed the need to educate children from a young age, in light of the abundance of sexual messages they were exposed to in the media.
Dr Dalli said the importance of the report lay in the challenging of gender stereotypes and ensuring that boys and girls were not pigeonholed into careers based on their gender.
Prior to Wednesday’s vote, a number of civil society organisations, including the European Women’s Lobby, made a joint call for MEPs to reject “misleading argumentation” on the EU’s role in education.
The group said: “The EU is bound to contribute to the development of a quality education in Europe by supporting and supplementing member states’ actions in this area and by its long-standing commitment and policies on gender equality.”