In classrooms across the globe, a quiet yet burgeoning campaign is underway to shape what children as young as 5 are taught about sex, relationships, and their own bodies. It is being driven by some of the world’s most influential institutions such as the UN, while parents, legal guardians, and the wider public are kept largely in the dark about what is happening behind school walls.
Comprehensive Sexuality Education, or CSE, was first conceived in the 1960s — the unwanted child, in a sense, of the sexual revolution, as soaring rates of STIs and teenage pregnancies demanded a global response. Until this point, sex education had focused primarily on health, safety, and biology. Since then, however, CSE emerged promoting sexual rights, and consequently, gender ideology and the sexualization of children.
Unsupervised Exposure to Harmful Content
Today, nearly 70 years on, despite substantial resources and investment spurring CSE initiatives, curriculum frameworks have been shown to lack detail on the specifics and depth of the topics to be taught to children, leaving significant discretion and discernment with educators and bypassing parents.
At the end of last year, ADF International provided legal support for Nicki Gaylard, a mother of six, whose 14-year-old daughter was exposed to highly inappropriate, sexually explicit content at her school. Nicki’s daughter, Courtney, and other Year 9 girls, were removed from regular lessons and placed in an unsupervised presentation led by external personnel. During this session, the girls reported being shown sexually explicit material and hearing graphic references that left them distressed and confused.
Her experience in South Australia, where approximately 80% of schools use CSE-based programs, is, tragically, far from unique and instead a local expression of a global agenda. Parents in countries across Europe, Latin America, and beyond have reported similar abuses of trust when it comes to their children’s education in this space. The international machinery promoting CSE is operating with significant institutional authority, without the knowledge or consent of the parents whose children are affected.
The Sexualization of Children
Debated by experts is how age-appropriate content is defined within CSE programs taught to children.
The International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education (ITGSE), the first consolidated international guideline developed by UN agencies promoting specific CSE learning objectives for children as a global policy, divides curriculum across four age bands.
For children aged 5–8, the ITGSE curriculum teaches ‘it is natural for humans to enjoy their bodies’, differences between sex and gender including ‘how they feel about their biological sex and gender’. Concerningly. The curriculum encourages to identify sources of information about sex and gender, instead of promoting parent-child interaction.
By ages 9–12, the guidance promotes learning objectives around masturbation, sexual stimulation, as well as sexual orientation and gender identity – content that attributes sexual rights to children and introduces ambiguity around their God-given identity. Children are encouraged to ‘question social and cultural norms that impact sexual behaviour in society’ and to ‘identify a trusted adult with whom they feel comfortable’.
By ages 12–15, topics such as contraception and deeper exploration of gender ideology are introduced and then at 15–18+, children are taught about sexual pleasure, abortion, and other so-called ‘reproductive rights’.
The framework’s proclaimed values — particularly around sexual rights — clearly reflect an ideological agenda rather than neutral health education. And worryingly, the absence of tight curriculum controls means schools and third-party providers can push content further than parents expect or consent to. Nicki’s case illustrates precisely this risk: a framework designed to be locally adapted, delivered in practice without oversight, transparency, or parental knowledge.
Exposing children to premature or explicit sexual content does not empower them — it harms them. In the case of CSE, the language of “empowerment” is being cleverly used to guise material that, if delivered by anyone other than a credentialed teacher in an institutional setting, would be recognised immediately as inappropriate.
Lifting the Veil
The broader principle at stake is one of transparency and trust. Parents send their children to school with an expectation — reasonable and fundamental — that educators will act in their children’s best interests while keeping parents informed. CSE has circumvented this parent-teacher relationship and jeopardised the foundation of transparency and accountability needed to ensure children’s safety.
Together with allies, ADF International has been raising awareness of the threats CSE poses to children as well as to the rights of their parents, while actively supporting allies to push back against an educational program that is now harming the very children it originally aimed to protect.
