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The Citizen’s Initiave of The Law about Sexual Education for Children and Adolescents contains 4 chapters (20 sections).
In Finland, there is no law about sexual education for children and adolescents that would provide a clear framework for teaching. However, sexual education is implemented from kindergarten age onwards.
The purpose of the Sexual Education Law is to secure the growth, development and physical well-being of children and adolescents, as well as their right to self-determination in accordance with their developmental level.
For children under school age, the focus of the education is on supporting the development of their emotional skills and body awareness. When we talk about children and adolescents, we are talking about minors (under 18 years of age) who are not legally capable of taking legal action.
The current practice violates, among other things, Chapters 11 and 22 of the Finnish Constitution, Chapter 3 of the Basic Education Act, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Government Decree (422/2012). We demand a change in this!
Supporting and protecting the sexual development of children and adolescents is defined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as follows: “The child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care”. The rights of children and adolescents include sexuality education implemented by adult educators from the perspective of children and adolescents, respecting their individual level of development.
The Sexual Education Law strengthens the rights of parents and guardians as a primary decision-making power over the sexual education of children and adolescents.
It is important that educational institutions within and outside the home are not in conflict with each other. Therefore, all institutions outside like the kindergartens, schools, educational institutions, hobby groups and religious communities – have a duty to inform parents and guardians about the sexuality education provided to their children and adolescents and its contents.
The Sex Education Act guarantees children, parents, and guardians the right to refuse ideological sex education, such as that offered by Seta and similar organizations. Children and adolescents who do not participate must be offered an alternative program during such lessons.
The Sexuality Education Law also aims to ensure that the material used in sexual education is scientifically valid, ethical and appropriate to the developmental level of the child and adolescents. The material must not be ideological or political, and must be approved by the parents and guardians of the children and adolescents.
Currently, the sex education provided by Seta and similar organizations includes things that most parents and guardians disagree with. These include ideas about gender diversity and being born in the wrong body. Such teaching causes conflicting feelings in children and adolescents instead of supporting their development.
Adapting sex education to reflect gender differences contributes to students’ sense of safety (source: Standards for Sexual Education in Europe 2010). Traditional gender roles also have their place in sexuality education, as they are part of the natural development of children and adolescents.
The appeal to human rights by Seta and parties representing a similar ideology does not correspond to the real rights of children and adolescents, according to their level of development. Seta talks about sexuality as an adult to adults and conveys the same message unchanged to children and adolescents. Seta challenges and violates the norms that create security for the development of children and adolescents. Children do not have the cognitive skills to question the ideologies offered by adults.
An adult educator must not define a child’s or an adolescent`s sexual orientation or gender contrary to their biological body while their development is still ongoing. An adult sexuality educator does not have the right to say that a developing individual is, for example, a trans child or an trans adolescent. An adult sexuality educator must also take into account the importance of puberty in the development of a child and an adolescent. Calming down puberty is of paramount importance and is the right of every child and adolescent. Puberty must not be bypassed, prevented or slowed down artificially, such as through medical or other treatments.
The effects of gender reassignment treatments on, for example, the central nervous system and bones have not been scientifically studied. However, it has been scientifically shown that approximately 87% of children who have strongly expressed that they are of the other sex have identified with the sex corresponding to their biological body after going through puberty. It should also be noted that the development of adolescence includes various identity experiments and identity variations.
Making a life-changing decision, such as choosing or changing gender, is too great and burdensome a demand for a child or an adolescent for their developmental level. It requires them to take responsibility for something they are not prepared for.
The role of sex educators, both inside and outside the home, is not to burden but to support children and adolescents in their developmental challenges. Sex education needs the framework provided by law so that children and adolescents can grow, develop and have physical peace.
Let’s pass the law on sexual education for children and adolescents into law!
Get involved by signing this.
The Act on Sexual Education for Children and Young People contains 4 chapters (20 sections).
CHAPTER 1
General regulation
CHAPTER 2
The rights of children and adolescents, liability exemption, physical and mental peace and the right to grow up in peace
CHAPTER 3
Responsibilities and rights of adult sex educators in sex education for children and adulescents
CHAPTER 4
The right of children and adolescents to self-determination
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1 CHAPTER
1 §
General Regulation
This Law applies to sexual education for children and adolescents.
2 §
Defining sexuality education for children and adolescents
Sexual education for children and adolescents is defined as a concept and its goals are set according to a child’s and an adolescent’s developmental stage.
When we talk about children and adolescents, we are talking about minors (under 18 years of age) who do not have legal capacity.
For children under school age, instead of sex education, the focus is on developing emotional skills and body awareness. Body awareness means, among other things, accepting one’s own body. It is possible to replace the title of sexual education with the development of emotional skills and body awareness also at later ages.
3 §
The goal of sex education
The goal of sex education is to support, protect and encourage the sexual development of children and adolescents at each stage of development.
This includes supporting a child’s and an adolescent`s own body image.
4 §
The principle of sex education
The starting point of sexual education is the perspective of a child and an adolescent. The sexuality of children and adolescents differs from that of adults, so adult educators must distinguish the meanings related to sexuality brought by adult experiences from the world of experiences of children and adolescents.
Accepting the perspective of children and adolescents is essential for adult educators.An adult educator must take into account that children and adolescents are developing individuals who need a safe environment to grow into their own personalities.
5 §
Considering the child and the adolescent as a whole
Identity is a person’s holistic experience of themselves. Sexuality does not determine all aspects of identity, which should be taken into account in sexuality education.
In sexuality education, adult educators must respect the identity that children and adolescents have already achieved.
2 CHAPTER
The rights of children and adolescents, liability exemption, physical and mental peace and the right to grow up in peace
6 §
Children’s and adolescents’s rights
The rights of children and adolescents include sexual education implemented by adult educators from the perspective of children and adolescents, respecting their level of development. For children under school age, the focus of education is to support the development of their emotional skills and body awareness.
7 §
Children and adolescents liability exemption
Children and adolescents are growing and developing individuals who have the opportunity to go through their different stages of growth without pressure from adults. Children and adolescents should not be made responsible for making choices related to sexuality that will affect the rest of their lives, such as choosing their gender, while their development is still ongoing. Children and adolescents must not be required to make decisions that they are not capable of making, given their level of development.
8 §
The peace of body
Children and adolescents have the right to their biological bodies and to develop accordingly as girls or boys. She / He also has the right to identify as a girl or a boy according to her / him body. An adult educator must accept the biological gender of the child and adolescent and allow peace for the individual and biological development of the child and the adolescent according to their gender.
An adult educator may not define the gender and sexuality of a child or an adolescent contrary to their biological body while their development is still ongoing.
9 §
The peace of growing
Children and adolescents must be guaranteed peace of growing for their personal development, which also includes sexual development. A sex educator must be familiar with the physical and psychological developmental stages of children and adolescents and provide them with neutral information about puberty in accordance with their development.
10 §
Calming the puberty of children and adolescents
Puberty, which is part of the development of children and adolescents, must not be skipped. The puberty period of children and adolescents must be protected so that they can go through this period of development in peace without external pressure to artificially prevent puberty. An adult educator should take into account that puberty has its own developmental tasks. Going through puberty peacefully is of paramount importance.
11 §
The right of children and adolescents to have friendships with their age-mate
Adult educators must take into account that children and adolescents have friendships with their age-mate that do not involve sexual intercourse.
These friendships are important for the development of children and adolescents, and adult educators should not sexualize them.
3 CHAPTER
Responsibilities and rights of adult sex educators in sex education for children and adolescents
12 §
Responsibilities and rights of adult sex educators in sex education for children and adolescents
Adult sex educators for children and adolescents include parties within and outside the home who have both rights and responsibilities. Educators within the home include parents and guardians of children and adolescents. Those outside the home include kindergartens, schools, leisure and hobby communities, healthcare, psychological professionals and religious communities. In addition, society and the media are also included in the external environment.
Different educational institutions are obliged to take into account the developmental stages of children and adolescents, respect them and adapt their sexuality education to them. The rights and obligations of parents and guardians towards their own child are greater the younger the child is. In conflict situations, parents and guardians have the primary decision-making power in the sexual education of children and adolescents.
Children and adolescents are protected from non-objective definitions and attempts to influence them accordingly. An adult educator must base their education on scientifically researched and valid information that is accepted by the scientific community.
An adult sexuality educator is obliged to protect the development of children and adolescents. An adult educator may not define a child’s or adolescent’s sexual orientation or gender contrary to their biological body while their development is still ongoing.
13 §
Obligation of cooperation between different parties
Parties inside and outside the home have a duty to cooperate as sex educators for children and adolescents. This ensures uncomplicated and consistent sex education, to which children and adolescents have a right.
14 §
Home, parents and guardians
The primary sex educators of children are parents and guardians. Designating them as biological mother and biological father reinforces the child’s and adolescent’s understanding of their sexuality. For adolescents, sex education takes place between parties inside and outside the home, but in a way that does not conflict with each other. A party outside the home may not determine the sexuality and sexual development of a child or adolescent.
15 §
Kindergartens, schools and other educational institutions
A party outside the home, such as a kindergarten, a school, or other educational institution, may not exceed the rights, obligations, and responsibility of the child’s parents and guardians for their child’s sexual education.
Information provided to the home by a party outside the home about child and adolescent must not be ideological or political. Parents and guardians have the right to receive factual information about their child’s development. The role of the party outside the home is to encourage and support parents and guardians in their educational task.
Parties outside the home have a duty to announce, which means they are obliged to inform the parents and guardians of children and adolescents about the sex education being organised and its content. If they refuse the sex education in question, another programme must be arranged for the children and adolescents during that time.
16 §
Other parties outside the home and leisure activities
All sex educators of children and adolescents outside the home have the duties and responsibilities specified in subsections 15 § 1-3.
17 §
Sexuality education materials and discussion about sexuality education
Sexuality education materials provided by parties outside the home must be consistent, scientific, ethical and relevant. Parents and guardians and parties outside the home must jointly approve the material to be used. The material must be appropriate to the child’s and adolescent’s developmental level and support their overall development.
An adult educator must ensure a safe and ideologically free environment for discussing sexuality education. The discussion should be scientific and balanced in nature, and among adult educators, it should also be critical, but free from pressure.
An adult educator should guide and support children and adolescents’s discussions about sexuality education.
18 §
Social responsibility and media
The matters stipulated in subsections 15 §, subsections 1-3 and 17 § apply to all adult educators.
The responsibility of society and the media in the sexual education of children and adolescents is to understand that not all children’s and adolescents’s problems can be explained by sexuality. Social phenomena of the time must be separated from the sexual development and growing pains of the individual. The media must provide factual, scientifically verified, ideologically objective and balanced information.
19 §
The right to refuse ideological sex education
Parents and guardians, as well as children and adolescents, have the right to refuse ideological sexual education from Seta and similar organisations like LGBTIQ. Individuals have the right to invoke a worldview based on religion, philosophy of life or values that is in conflict with ideological sexual education. Conflict-free sexual education promotes the balanced development of children and adolescents.
If a child or adolescence or their parent or guardian refuses ideological sex education, another program must be arranged for the child or adolescence during the sex education. This applies to external parties defined 15 § in sections 1-3 and 16 § . If it is a question of sex education according to the school curriculum, the provision of 15 § section 3 shall apply. Other parties outside the home also have the reporting obligation defined 15 § in section 3.
4 CHAPTER
The right of children and adolescents to self-determination
20 §
Protecting children and adolescents from making decisions that are too demanding for their level of development
The right of children to self-determination is regulated in Section 6, Subsection 3 of the Constitution (731/1999), according to which children must be able to influence matters that concern them in a manner appropriate to their development.
Children and adolescents should not be required to have the right to self-determination in matters related to sexuality that are part of adulthood, such as gender reassignment, because the child’s and adolescent`s level of development is not sufficient for such a decision. The right to self-determination of adults is not directly proportional to the right to self-determination of children and adolescents. Children and adolescents should be protected by giving them developmental space
Parents and guardians, as sex educators, have a responsibility to guarantee the child’s and adolescents’s right to self-determination in a manner appropriate to their mental, physiological and social level of development. There should be no attempt to influence the decisions made by the child or adolescent ideologically or politically.
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Sources:
Constitution of Finland (731/1999):
https://www.finlex.fi/fi/lainsaadanto/1999/731#L2
Basic Education Act (628/1998):
https://www.finlex.fi/fi/lainsaadanto/saadoskokoelma/1998/628
Government Decree on the National Objectives of Education and the Distribution of Hours in Basic Education as Referred to in the Basic Education Act (422/2012):
https://www.finlex.fi/fi/lainsaadanto/2012/422
Convention on the Rights of the Child (60/1991):
https://www.finlex.fi/fi/valtiosopimkiset/sopimussarja/1991/60
Standards for Sexual Education in Europe (Recommendation) 2010:
https://www.julkari.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/80220/039844e2-c540-4e81-834e-6f11e0218246.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y