What Italy’s New Sex Education Bill Means For Child Abuse Prevention: A Parent’s Perspective
Last Tuesday, I sat crammed into a plastic chair at my 10-year-old Mia’s primary school outside Rome, wiping strawberry jam off my 7-year-old’s sneaker with a crumpled napkin, waiting for the fall parent-teacher meeting to start. The head teacher passed out faded one-page flyers outlining changes to the school’s health curriculum, tied to the new national sex education bill. My friend Giulia, who sits next to me and has a daughter the same age as Mia, leaned over and whispered, “They scrapped the annual child abuse prevention workshop. Said it might violate the new rules against gender propaganda.”
I felt my chest tighten. Two years ago, that same workshop taught Mia that any touch that makes her uncomfortable is wrong, even if it comes from a relative. A month after the workshop, she came home crying and told me her dad’s great-uncle had grabbed her butt during a family dinner, saying it was just a “silly pinch.” If she hadn’t learned that it was okay to tell, I might never have known.
The new bill frames any discussion of gender identity that doesn’t tie it strictly to biological sex at birth as “gender propaganda,” and cuts state funding for any school that teaches it. The problem isn’t just that it censors discussion of trans and nonbinary kids, though that’s harmful enough. The problem is that almost every evidence-based child sexual abuse prevention program includes basic lessons about body autonomy, boundaries, and inclusive language that gets lumped in with the “propaganda” label. Scared of losing funding, most schools aren’t picking apart curriculums to cut just the gender content – they’re scrapping the whole prevention programs entirely. That’s the quiet, dangerous conflation no one is talking about enough: protecting kids from abuse is now being tied to the same “ideology” politicians are claiming to fight.
I texted my sister, a third-grade teacher in Naples, that night. She wrote back that her school canceled their K-6 prevention program last month. The program had a single line that said “some kids don’t feel like the gender the doctor gave them at birth fits them, and that’s okay.” Rather than risk losing funding, the administration threw the whole program out. They told teachers they can’t do any informal lessons on boundaries either, just in case it gets them in trouble.
I’ve seen so many arguments online about this bill, from both sides, and most of them never mention the abuse prevention piece. People yell about ideology and don’t talk about what this actually means for 8-year-olds walking into school every day. Abusers count on kids being taught to obey adults without question, to be polite even when they’re uncomfortable, to think that no one will believe them if they speak up. Those old prevention programs broke that cycle. Now that cycle is being rebuilt for the sake of political gain.
I realized a few weeks ago that Mia’s school wasn’t going to teach this stuff this year, so I started building small, low-effort lessons into our routine at home. It doesn’t take hours of awkward conversations, just a few minutes a month, and it’s something any parent or caregiver can do. I do one specific check-in every two weeks after dinner, instead of the generic “did anything interesting happen?” I ask, “Has anyone touched you or asked you to do something with your body this week that made you feel weird, even if it was an accident or someone you know?” I name specific people – grandparents, coaches, teachers, friends – so they don’t only think strangers can hurt them.
Once a month, we do a 5-minute role play. Last week, we practiced what to say if a coach asks you to stay after practice alone in the gym. Both my kids practiced saying, “I’d rather wait until another grown-up is here” out loud, until it felt natural, not shy. The month before that, we practiced what to do if an aunt keeps tickling you even after you say stop. I played the annoying aunt, teasing them for being sensitive, and they got to practice repeating “stop, I don’t like that” until they said it firmly.
I also put a small “body wins” chart on our fridge. Any time one of the kids says no to a touch they don’t want, or tells me about something that made them uncomfortable, they get a sticker. Five stickers get them to pick the movie for family night. Last weekend, at my in-laws’ house, Mia refused to hug my husband’s uncle when he arrived. My mother-in-law started to say she was being rude, and I just nodded at Mia and said, “That’s a body win, go put a sticker on the chart when we get home.” It’s a small thing, but it reinforces that I take their boundaries seriously, no matter what anyone else says.
For teachers who are scared of losing their funding, I’ve seen my sister’s colleagues slip small lessons into everyday class without drawing attention. They start homeroom one day a week with a 1-minute reminder: “Your body is always yours, and you never have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. If someone doesn’t stop when you say no, come tell me right away.” That doesn’t mention gender at all, so it doesn’t trigger the bill’s rules, but it teaches the core of abuse prevention that politicians are so eager to cut.
Last week, Mia came home from school and told me a boy in her class kept pulling her ponytail even after she told him to stop, so she went straight to the teacher and told her what was happening. Two years ago, she would have just sat there and cried, too scared to speak up. That’s the prevention work working, even when the school won’t teach it. But I still worry. There are thousands of families across Italy where parents don’t have the time or the resources to do this work at home, where kids go to school and no one ever teaches them that their body is theirs. I don’t know what’s going to happen with this bill in the long run, or how many more programs will get cut. Right now, all I can do is keep doing my 5-minute check-ins, my silly role plays, and remind my kids that their boundaries matter. That’s enough for my kids, for now. I just wish it didn’t have to be this way.
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