Skip to content
Center for Reproductive Rights
Center for Reproductive Rights

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Pro Bono Program
    • Creative Council
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
    • Global Advocacy
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Events
    • Press Releases
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift Now
    • Be a Champion
    • Join the Advocates Council
    • Become a Major Donor
    • Give Through Your Donor-Advised Fund
    • Make a Gift In Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Leave a Legacy
    • More Ways to Give
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
Donate
icon-hamburger icon-magnifying-glass Donate
icon-magnifying-glass-teal

U.S.-based Sex-Ed Program Comes Under Fire in International Human Rights Case

Center for Reproductive Rights - Center for Reproductive Rights - search logo
search Close Close icon
Center for Reproductive Rights -
Menu Close Menu Close icon
Donate

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Pro Bono Program
    • Creative Council
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
    • Global Advocacy
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Events
    • Press Releases
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift Now
    • Be a Champion
    • Join the Advocates Council
    • Become a Major Donor
    • Give Through Your Donor-Advised Fund
    • Make a Gift In Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Leave a Legacy
    • More Ways to Give
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

Related Content

Issues:

Adolescent SRHR, Sex Education

Regions:

Europe, Croatia

Work:

In the Courts

Type:

News, Press Releases

Case Archive

For updates on this case and others, explore our case archive here.

Follow the Center

Donate Now

Join Now

10.10.2007

In the Courts Adolescent SRHR Europe News

U.S.-based Sex-Ed Program Comes Under Fire in International Human Rights Case

Justin Goldberg

Share this Story

  • facebook
  • Twitter
  • linkedin
  • Email id
Groups Charge Croatia is Endangering Lives of its Young People

NEW YORK – Today, a group of advocacy organizations filed the first human rights legal challenge to a faith- based sex-education program with roots in the United States. The Center for Reproductive Rights, Interights, and Centre for Education and Counseling of Women (CESI) submitted the complaint with the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) against Croatia for its sponsorship of a gender-biased and medically inaccurate program. The groups argue that Croatia is endangering the lives of its young people through misleading and inadequate sex education and is therefore, in breach of its obligations under a major international human rights treaty, the European Social Charter.


“We are using the power of the law to hold the Croatian government accountable for living up to its agreement to provide young people with accurate and comprehensive sex-education. Those of us who care about the human rights of teenagers won’t sit idly by while a government fails to do its part in stemming public health crises, such as teen pregnancy and the spread of HIV and AIDS,” said Christina Zampas, legal adviser for Europe at the Center for Reproductive Rights, the global legal advocacy group based in New York. “When governments support sex-ed programs that feed young people misinformation, those governments are failing to protect the health and well-being of their citizens.”


Croatia has sponsored the extracurricular sex-education program Teen STAR for a decade and is now seeking to mandate a nearly identical program. Teen STAR (Sexuality Teaching in the context of Adult Responsibility) draws on Catholic teachings, promoting abstinence at the expense of other viable alternatives such as contraception. Its founder and international director, Dr. Hanna Klaus is based in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Klaus says that Teen STAR has been awarded a U.S. government PEPFAR grant.


The program attempts to draw a distinction from abstinence-only curriculum by highlighting its focus on natural family planning, but Teen STAR clearly delivers a strong message of abstinence. Instructors teach teenagers that:



  • Contraception “disturbs the essence and the nature of sexual act… can be a protection to a certain extent, but on the other hand, it can give a false sense of security, and sooner or later fail the user.”

  • Masturbation “is a case of severe moral disorder.”

  • Fertility patterns should be tracked as a means to maintain and promote virginity.

  • Intimacy between same-sex couples is counter to “proper” sexual intercourse, analogizing it to sexual harassment and other socially “deviant” phenomena.

  • And stay-at-home mothers make for better families, in effect, reinforcing gender stereotypes.


Legal challenges to abstinence-only programs here in the U.S. have mostly argued against the curricula’s religious focus. But this case, the first of its kind, argues that a sex-education program violates basic human rights. Under the European Social Charter, member countries have agreed to protect the social and economic rights of their citizens, including providing young people with accurate and comprehensive sex-education. The ECSR is responsible for considering complaints of non-compliance with the charter. If the ECSR decides against Croatia, it would be the first time an international human rights body reinforced the principle that failing to provide comprehensive, scientific-based, non-discriminatory sexual education violates young people’s fundamental human rights.


Individual Croatian government officials and an independent commission charged with reviewing Croatia’s sex education programs have already concluded that Teen STAR is neither based in science nor expert medical facts, and that the program fails to address the research and available data on Croatian teenagers’ sexual behavior. Research shows that sexually transmitted infections are increasing at startling rates among Croatian youth, with the number of those engaging in risky behaviors on the rise.


“Croatia is failing in its obligations under international human rights law to provide accurate science-based sexual and reproductive health education to its youth which is an integral part of its duty to provide meaningful education and to take positive steps to protect the health of young people,” said David Geer, Executive Director at Interights, the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights based in London. “As a result the government is creating a generation of people ignorant of the dangers of HIV and AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections-all of which are fast becoming major threats to the health and lives of Croatian youth.”


“It is imperative that Croatia meet its legal responsibilities under international and European Union law and implement comprehensive, non-discriminatory sex-ed in its schools,” said Sanja Cesar, Program Manager of CESI, a feminist organization based in Zagreb, Croatia.


The complaint also calls on the Croatian government to train teachers to deliver appropriate and good quality sex education and to set up an oversight process to regulate, monitor and evaluate the school-based curriculum.



www.reproductiverights.org ,

Related Posts

Stopping All Violence

Last week, President Obama signed the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which funds support groups for and...

Abortion, Legal Protections, Legal Restrictions, Adolescent SRHR, Maternal Health,Africa, Tanzania, Europe, Latin America & Caribbean, Peru, United States, Accountability Bodies, United Nations,In the Courts, At the United Nations, Engaging Policymakers, Reporting on Rights
Stopping All Violence

The world became a better place

The world became a better place by Johanna Westeson, Regional Director for Europe at the Center for Reproductive Rights In...

Abortion, Legal Protections, Legal Restrictions, Adolescent SRHR,Europe, Poland, Accountability Bodies, European Human Rights System,In the Courts
The world became a better place

Strasbourg Observers: P and S v. Poland – Adolescence, vulnerability, and reproductive autonomy

Strasbourg Observers: P and S v. Poland - Adolescence, vulnerability, and reproductive autonomy By Johanna Westeson, Regional Director for Europe,...

Abortion, Legal Restrictions, Adolescent SRHR,Europe, Poland, Accountability Bodies, European Human Rights System,In the Courts, Engaging Policymakers, Around the World

Sign up for email updates.

The most up-to-date news on reproductive rights, delivered straight to you.

Footer Menu

  • Careers
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us

Center for Reproductive Rights
© (1992-2022)

Use of this site signifies agreement with our disclaimer and privacy policy.

Center for Reproductive Rights
This site uses necessary, analytics and social media cookies to improve your experience and deliver targeted advertising. Click "Options" or click here to learn more and customize your cookie settings, otherwise please click "Accept" to proceed.
OPTIONSACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
CookieDurationDescription
_ga2 yearsThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat_UA-6619340-11 minuteNo description
_gid1 dayThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.
_parsely_session30 minutesThis cookie is used to track the behavior of a user within the current session.
HotJar: _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjFirstSeen30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjid1 yearThis cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
HotJar: _hjIncludedInPageviewSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjIncludedInSessionSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjTLDTestsessionNo description
SSCVER1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for online advertising by creating user profile based on their preferences.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
CookieDurationDescription
_fbp3 monthsThis cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.
fr3 monthsThe cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.
IDE1 year 24 daysUsed by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
IMRID1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for storing the start and end of the user session for nielsen statistics. It helps in consumer profiling for online advertising.
personalization_id2 yearsThis cookie is set by twitter.com. It is used integrate the sharing features of this social media. It also stores information about how the user uses the website for tracking and targeting.
TDID1 yearThe cookie is set by CloudFare service to store a unique ID to identify a returning users device which then is used for targeted advertising.
test_cookie15 minutesThis cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
CookieDurationDescription
adEdition1 dayNo description
akaas_MSNBC10 daysNo description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional1 yearThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others1 yearNo description
geoEdition1 dayNo description
next-i18next1 yearNo description
SAVE & ACCEPT
Powered by CookieYes Logo
Scroll Up