STOP the Sexualization of Children!

Petition to STOP the
Sexualization of Children!

We, the Coalition for Protecting the Health and Innocence of Children, representing countries from every region of the world, do gather at United Nations headquarters in New York to launch this worldwide petition to protect the health and innocence of children.

We affirm with great concern that girls in particular are being sexualized and exploited by the increased promotion of high-risk sexual activity through formal education programs known as "comprehensive sexuality education."

We call upon all UN Member States, UN agencies, businesses, churches, non-governmental organizations, responsible citizens and officers of government around the world to take immediate steps to protect the health and innocence of children, and especially girls, by ceasing to fund or support any organizations, agencies, projects, programs or curricula that promote these dangerous sexuality education programs.

We declare that such sexuality education programs are anything but comprehensive, since they instruct youth they have a "right to sexual pleasure," and encourage high-risk sexual behavior, while failing to adequately warn youth of the formidable negative consequences, physical and emotional, of early sexual behavior, especially for girls. These programs also fail to provide many biological facts, including information about adolescent brain development and the vulnerabilities of the female reproductive system. Without these medical facts, young people cannot make informed choices about their sexual behavior.

We oppose all programs that provide graphic or erotic sexual materials to children and youth or that promote condoms as "protection" without fully disclosing significant failure rates or the risks of relying on condoms to prevent pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS.

We declare that sex education programs should encourage the ideal of delaying sexual activity until marriage as the only sure way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, abortions, and a myriad of the other well-documented negative health consequences associated with premarital sex.

We affirm that sexuality education programs that encourage sexual activity among children are irresponsible, and put children, especially girls, at risk for exploitation, disease, and early death.

We further declare that such education programs are in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recognizes that "the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care" and that States Parties are "to protect the child from all forms of sexual exploitation."

We call upon all UN agencies to cease the promotion and funding of "comprehensive sexuality education" programs and to instead support programs that encourage the ideal of delaying sexual activity until marriage.

Finally, we call upon all responsible citizens of the world to join us in signing this petition and to do all they can to pressure governments and UN agencies to stop funding so-called "comprehensive sexuality education" programs that promise to protect children but in fact jeopardize their health and innocence.