The recent amendment to the Valditara bill, approved by the Culture Commission, marks a worrying setback in the educational battle for rights and awareness.
While the original text provided that sexual and affective education projects were activated only with parental consent, the new formulation goes further and imposes a total ban for middle schools, preventing any activity on affectivity, respect for the body or relationships, even if mediated, planned or moderated.
Is it a step backwards? Of course: it is precisely in the 11–14 year age group that the first identities are formed, the sense of limits develops, a language of the body and of consensus is built. At that formative crossroads, the State decides to remain silent. This amendment, signed by Giorgia Latini (Lega) with the support of Loizzo and Miele, transforms a right into a taboo.
A move that comes on the day when yet another victim of feminicide was counted: Pamela Genini29 years old, killed by her ex-partner. In that context, which for many would have required words, prevention, a culture of respect, the political response is the silence imposed on schools.
The promoters defend the measure as a guarantee of the centrality of the family and respect for age: the rapporteur Rossano Sasso claims that they do not want to completely ban sexuality education, but “exclude what exceeds the national indications”. However, the topic raised of “indoctrination attempts” with implicit references to “gender ideology” reveals the vision that inspires the measure.
But the law – if approved in this way – splits the right to education in two: sexual education will be able to continue in high school (subject to informed consent), but in middle school it remains prohibited.
In a European context where many countries have included sexual education since primary school, this Italian choice appears regressive and isolated. In short, in the aftermath of a femicide, a measure that limits sexual-affective education in schools cannot be considered good news. It is, on the contrary, a dangerous signal: the State chooses to remove itself from its educational role precisely at the moment in which society asks for more awareness, more tools to prevent violence, more spaces in which to talk about respect and healthy relationships.
Emotional education is not an “ideology” nor a threat to family values, but one of the few concrete ways to counter the culture of possession and oppression which, every week, translates into crime news.
Blocking or censoring these routes just as the country mourns a new victim means ignoring the deep roots of the problem. Violent relationships don’t arise out of nowhere: they sink into an emotional illiteracy that feeds on silence, the lack of words and positive role models. Depriving the school of the possibility of talking about it is like turning off the light while trying to understand where the fire comes from. But in the meantime the bill will arrive in the Chamber as early as November.
