Sex education should be compulsory in all schools as it can contribute to public health priorities such as reducing unplanned pregnancies and early treatment of sexually transmitted infections, a left wing group said.

Żminijietna said it supports the European Parliament resolution on the report, Empowering Girls through Education in the EU adopted recently, viewing it as a major step towards gender equality.

“The report stresses that education is an important tool for enabling women to participate fully in society. The report stresses that poverty is the biggest obstacle preventing girls from education and gender equality. Also that those girls who are not allowed to go to school are more exposed to domestic violence,” the group observed.

The report urged member states to promote gender equality in their comprehensive sex and relationship programmes and to consider making these programmes compulsory in their school curricula for all primary and secondary school children and training teachers. The report also calls on the Commission to support the inclusion of objective information on LGBTi issues in school curricula.

Żminjietna said that compulsory sex education would contribute to public health priorities such as reducing unplanned pregnancies and early treatment of sexually transmitted infections.

"Given the fact, that teenage pregnancies rates in Malta have been growing, the recommendations in the report are a step forward towards addressing this problem," the group said.