Minister Giuseppe Valditara, with this bill are you preventing sexual and emotional education from being carried out in schools?
«No, this is false. As I have said several times, those who support it either do not know or pretend not to know article 1 paragraph 4 which states “Without prejudice to what is provided for in the national indications”, i.e. school programmes, and in civic education, obviously”.
And what does it mean?
«That in the school programs there is all the sexual education in the biological sense, therefore the knowledge of sexual differences, the reproductive systems, the reproductive functions, pubertal development, the risks relating to sexually transmitted diseases, therefore there is everything that concerns the teaching of sexual education in the biological sense».
And what about affectivity instead?
«In the bill there is no reference to affective education, indeed there is an explicit reference to school programs and, therefore, also to civic education. In the new Guidelines, for the first time we have included not only education on respect towards everyone and in particular towards women, but also education on relationships. In the new school programs there will also be education in affective and relational empathy, therefore everything that concerns positive relationships between young people and respectful relationships towards the opposite sex.”
The opposition says more action needs to be taken on gender violence.
«But look, there is already education to combat gender violence, to combat sexual violence and, therefore, also feminicides. The related courses have already started in September 2024 in implementation of the New Guidelines on Civic Education, and almost all schools have started them in a curricular form, so it is not true that they are only part of the 33 hours of civic education, because we have planned them to be interdisciplinary, in short they cover all disciplines. Furthermore, I also want to add that the teachers have testified to us that in 70% of cases they have recorded a positive change in the behavior of the young people and, therefore, an improvement in relationships and behaviours”.
But who takes care of this education, which figures?
«These courses will be held by adequately trained teachers. We have allocated, among other things, 15 million euros for training courses within schools, another approximately 4 million euros to launch specific training courses for teachers, paid for by Indire (the National Institute of Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research, ed.). Peer tutoring systems will also be used, i.e. comparisons between students, in which the teacher will act as moderator. The left didn’t do all this, we are doing it. All this promotes the culture of respect and, therefore, is the only truly great tool for fighting against bullying, sexual violence and femicides.”
So what don’t you want to see done at school?
«We don’t want indoctrination within our schools, the so-called “gender” indoctrination. There is an example that I believe is emblematic, that of the British journalist who was sanctioned because she said that heat harms pregnant women, while political correctness expected her to say pregnant people. These are the gender theories that frankly risk creating confusion in the head of a 3, 4 or 10 year old child.”
And how will we talk about sexuality?
«As regards issues of sexuality that do not fall within the scope of school curricula, they may be addressed for middle schools and high schools, but under certain conditions. First of all, only by experts with adequate scientific training, of which the school guarantees. Therefore, if, by hypothesis, the expert does not have a scientific caliber and will carry out propaganda activities, whoever organized the course will have to answer for it. Secondly, associations, pressure groups, various bodies and anything else will no longer be able to enter schools which often, in the past, only had the aim of indoctrinating and not correctly informing. Thirdly, all this will only be possible with the consent of the families for minors. Parents must be adequately informed about the content of the course and who will teach it. Parents who do not agree can simply ask for their children to attend an alternative course, perhaps in Italian, history or something else.”
Why is informed consent needed?
«Because kids must be made to grow up without conditioning, without putting theories in their heads that they don’t yet have the tools to know how to deal with. Then it is right to enhance the role of parents, as the Constitution says. Article 30 of the Charter presupposes that education is first and foremost the responsibility of families. Then the school has a fundamental role, as our constituents said, to integrate, support and complete education which starts from the family, but has the aim of strengthening, enhancing and integrating. The constituent wanted education to be first and foremost in the school, whereas education is first and foremost the responsibility of the family.”
Does sex education help stop feminicides?
«We need education to respect, respect for the “no”, education to consent, education to respect the will of the woman. This is useful, not what the militants who support gender theories would like. Among other things, associations that will no longer be able to hold lessons in the past were often paid for by the school and, therefore, by the taxpayer. Sometimes they were not associations with a particular scientific preparation or caliber, but associations that had the aim of indoctrination.”
It could be said that you do not guarantee plurality of visions.
«No, we are not totalitarians. But these issues must be addressed with real preparation, scientifically and not in a demagogic, propagandistic, improvised way.”
What is the identikit of the person who can talk about these issues?
«A serious professional, a psychologist, a doctor, a university professor who has professionalism behind him, an important professional curriculum».
The opposition used harsh tones with her, even accusing her of favoring feminicides. And she got very angry.
«I was very saddened, I have to tell the truth. Center-left governments have done little or nothing to educate respect, relationships and empathy, which are the only tools to foster a culture of respect in schools and in our society. However, they have repeatedly insinuated and often stated that this bill on informed consent would hinder the fight against feminicides. They accused us of preventing and weakening the fight against femicides and sexual violence. I believe this is a defamatory accusation, absolutely unacceptable. I would also add that sexual education in a biological sense is useful for knowledge of one’s own body, for awareness of how to deal with relationships with the opposite sex, for personal maturation, but it is certainly not useful for combating feminicides, just remember the famous Nordic paradox whereby, among Western countries, those that have the highest rate of feminicides – from Finland to Lithuania, from Iceland to Sweden – are those that have had sex education in school for decades. So let’s not confuse things: sexual education in a biological sense is certainly important but it has nothing to do with the fight against feminicides. If anything, it is education to respect that is fundamental, education to consider women not as an object, education to consent. We need to bring back the sense of limits, the sense of the boundaries of the ego, the respect for the “no”, which a certain culture has instead rejected. There is a cultural revolution to be carried out, very different from what the left is proposing to us.”
