Human Rights Watch welcomes the opportunity to offer input for the Special Rapporteur's upcoming thematic report on curriculum, pedagogy and assessment at the service of the right to education. This submission draws on Human Rights Watch's global research on the right to education and focuses on human rights concerns related to 1) the lack of comprehensive sexuality education in the many countries, 2) barriers to education for refugee children, and 3) education as a tool for political indoctrination or assimilation.
1. The Right to Comprehensive Sexuality Education
All children and adolescents have a right to information about sexual and reproductive health, as guaranteed under international human rights law. The right to information is set forth in numerous human rights treaties,[1] and includes both a negative obligation for states to refrain from interference with the provision of information by private parties and a positive responsibility to provide complete, age-appropriate, and scientifically accurate information necessary for the protection and promotion of rights, including the right to health.[2] The Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have clarified that the right to education includes the right to comprehensive sexuality education.[3]
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) as "a curriculum-based process of teaching and learning about the cognitive, emotional, physical and social aspects of sexuality. It aims to equip children and young people with knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that will empower them to: realize their health, well-being and dignity; develop respectful social and sexual relationships; consider how their choices affect their own well-being and that of others; and, understand and ensure the protection of their rights throughout their lives."[4]
The Human Rights Harms of Inadequate CSE
Human Rights Watch has extensively documented how inadequate sexuality education, and restrictions on the teaching of CSE, contribute to grave human rights harms.[5] A full review of relevant research is beyond the scope of this submission, so we highlight a few illustrative examples below.
- Early and unplanned pregnancies and barriers to education: In Tanzania,[6] Mozambique,[7] and the Dominican Republic[8]-all countries with high rates of adolescent pregnancy-Human Rights Watch found that many adolescent girls experienced early and unplanned pregnancies. Pregnant and parenting students then faced enormous barriers to continuing their education, due to discriminatory policies and practices, stigma, and inadequate support. Our research showed that governments were failing to provide CSE, leaving adolescents without essential information about safe sexual practices, healthy relationships, and their human rights. In some cases, students received misleading information. For example, some adolescent mothers who spoke with Human Rights Watch admitted not knowing they could fall pregnant the first time they had sexual intercourse.
- Sexual violence: In Ecuador,[9] Senegal,[10] and South Korea,[11] Human Rights Watch research on sexual violence demonstrated a dire need for CSE to ensure children and young people are taught about gender equality, consent, and healthy relationships. In Senegal, Human Rights Watch found that abusive teachers and other staff sexually exploited, harassed, and abused adolescent girls in the country's secondary schools. In Ecuador, Human Rights Watch documented widespread sexual and gender-based violence in schools perpetrated by teachers, school authorities, other school staff, and janitors, as well as students.[12] In South Korea, we documented the spread and impact of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (also described as "digital sex crimes") involving non-consensual intimate images of women and girls.[13] Each of these reports highlighted inadequate sexuality education and called on governments to implement CSE.
- Discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) children and youth: In Vietnam,[14] South Korea,[15] Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,[16] and Japan,[17] Human Rights Watch found LGBT students faced stigma, bullying, harassment, and discrimination in schools, compounded by a lack of sexuality education that was inclusive of sexual and gender diversity. These gaps in the education curriculum intensified the isolation and marginalization LGBT children and youth experienced. In some cases, teaching reinforced harmful stereotypes and prejudices. As a result, some LGBT and sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI)-diverse students skipped classes or abandoned school entirely.
Anti-Rights Actors Undermining CSE
Human Rights Watch has observed a troubling backlash against efforts to provide children and young adults with adequate information and comprehensive sexuality education in many parts of the world.[18] We have followed the rise of a global anti-rights movement campaigning against legislative and policy developments on human rights issues, including gender equality. Proponents have built cross-border alliances under the banner of countering so-called "gender ideology," a term used to portray efforts to advance gender equality-including those aiming to uphold sexual and reproductive health rights, combat gender-based violence, and eliminate discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity-as threats to "traditional" values and families.[19] Led by religious and political groups, the anti-rights movement has increasingly mobilized to oppose sexuality education.[20] These groups often advance harmful, stigmatizing, patriarchal, or anti-LGBT narratives-sometimes presented as national traditions or cultural values. These include the propositions that young people will grow out of or cannot yet understand their sexual orientation or gender identity, that people who engage in sex outside marriage should be stigmatized or punished, and that suppressing access to information about sexuality will somehow delay young people's sexual initiation.[21]
In Romania, Human Rights Watch found that religious institutions and governmental officials have made efforts to block access to sexual and reproductive health services, provision of sexuality education, and rights for LGBT people. Religious denominations, particularly the Romanian Orthodox Church and Protestant churches, have perpetuated and supported anti-rights rhetoric as well, and the influence of religious conservatism extends to healthcare provision.[22]
For example, in April 2020, Romania's Parliament amended the law on the protection and promotion of children's rights to require schools and specialized governmental institutions to specifically cover "sexual education" "at least once a semester" in schools. But in June 2022, Parliament removed the "once a semester" requirement and made the subject optional again, and now only available to students in grades 8 and higher, with written consent from the parents or legal representatives of students under 18. The amendment also replaced the term "sexual education" with "health education," under pressure from the Romanian Orthodox Church. According to a deputy inspector chief, school inspectors are not obligated to ask or collect feedback about health education because it is an optional course.
In addition, educators in Romania lacked guidance on how to integrate gender equality into their teaching, including any state-provided gender equality manual for teachers. In its absence, activists created and introduced one in 2022. In response, anti-rights actors wrote an open letter to the Ministry of Education criticizing the manual prepared by activists as an "attempt to indoctrinate students early with gender ideology," including by discussing gender stereotypes and gender roles. One of the manual's creators described how anti-abortion activists sabotaged workshops that were introducing the manual to educators, mocking its contents and harassing activists.[23]
Similarly, religious and political actors have obstructed efforts to implement CSE in Ecuador, where sexual and gender-based violence is a longstanding, pervasive problem in schools.[24] Successive education ministry leadership have taken issue with implementing CSE, particularly topics of gender identity.[25]
For example, in November 2024, a former National Assembly member accused the Ministry of Education of "indoctrinating" children with "gender ideology." The ministry responded by removing the referenced materials from its website and clarifying that, "[t]he Ministry of Education does not implement indoctrination programs."[26] Human Rights Watch found that the content removed from the ministry's "Sexualipedia" platform had included age-appropriate resources on consent, healthy relationships, HIV, puberty, and gender identity. Following criticism by civil society and media reporting,[27] some resources were restored. Notably, content referencing nonbinary identities remains unavailable.[28]
In November 2024, Ecuador's Constitutional Court issued a ruling upholding the rights of a transgender girl whose private school failed to support her during her gender transition.[29] The court ordered the Ministry of Education to develop and disseminate a mandatory protocol for respecting the rights of LGBT children in schools.[30] The protocol, published In October 2025 under the previous minister of education, does not fully comply with the ruling, referring to issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity as "ideological."[31] The new minister of education, who began her tenure in November, has vowed to review it, suggesting it still goes too far on issues of gender identity.[32]
In the United States and Brazil, Human Rights Watch has documented harassment and censorship of teachers trying to provide comprehensive sexuality education in schools. In the US state of Florida, which explicitly censors discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in schools, teachers and students interviewed by Human Rights Watch described an atmosphere of fear and retaliation.[33] Educators reported being reprimanded or investigated for ostensibly violating vaguely worded policies restricting what they can teach, while news reports documented cases of teachers being fired, including for using students' preferred gender pronouns.[34] Students and community members described identity-based harassment, often encouraged by anti-LGBT political groups. Curricular censorship laws not only conceal and stigmatize discussions pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity, but embolden anti-LGBT actors and sentiment, fostering a hostile educational environment for LGBT students and teachers.
In Brazil, Human Rights Watch documented harassment, censorship, and intimidation faced by public school teachers who address gender, sexuality, and rights of LGBT people in classrooms.[35] Under the guise of opposing "gender ideology" or "indoctrination of children,"[36] opportunistic politicians and ideologues have targeted educators, leading to anonymous complaints, investigations, threats, and self-censorship. Many teachers reported altering or canceling lessons to avoid backlash, creating a chilling effect that undermines their ability to teach about SOGI and women's rights.[37]
We recommend that the Special Rapporteur:
- Urge all states to implement mandatory comprehensive sexuality education that complies with international standards and is scientifically accurate, rights-based, and age-appropriate. Ensure that the curriculum reaches students from an early age and builds incrementally to equip them with developmentally relevant information about their health and wellbeing. Ensure that teachers are adequately trained to teach this curriculum, and schools provide safe spaces for children and adolescents to discuss issues in a confidential, non-stigmatizing manner.
2. Barriers to Education for Refugee Children
Under international law, all children have the right to quality education without discrimination, regardless of their immigration or refugee status.[38] Many refugee-hosting countries have adopted positive policies, but these do not always apply to all refugees or are not consistently carried out.
For example, an estimated 437,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are school-age children. Bangladesh prohibits Rohingya from living outside the refugee camps in the Cox's Bazar district and on the island of Bhasan Char, or enrolling children in public or private schools in Bangladesh.[39]
The only education available in the refugee camps are informal classes, taught either at "learning centers" run by humanitarian agencies, or at schools established by teachers among the Rohingya community. About 304,000 children had been enrolled in tuition-free classes at the learning centers, but due to drastic humanitarian funding cuts by donors including the United States, in June 2025 UNICEF announced that classes 1 to 5 in the learning centers would be closed, affecting a large majority of all enrolled children.[40] In February 2026, Bangladesh reportedly approved US$18 million in World Bank financing for UNICEF to reopen learning centers for up to 255,000 children in the camps.[41] The education sector's budget before the closures had been $72 million.
The Rohingya community-led classes are seen as providing better-quality education, and far more Rohingya students at these schools reach upper-secondary school. However, the community-led schools charge small fees that are out of reach for many Rohingya families. Bangladesh does not recognize these schools, which therefore cannot receive humanitarian or private donations to help offset fees, or scale up.
Under Bangladesh's policies, no Rohingya child can access accredited education, or attend university. Rohingya students and teachers told Human Rights Watch that the lack of accreditation and pathways to higher education contributed to high dropout rates in the camps.
We recommend that the Special Rapporteur:
- Urge states to guarantee the right to quality education without discrimination for all children, regardless of their migration status.
3. Education as a Tool for Political Indoctrination or Assimilation
Human Rights Watch has documented how Russia and China have used education to carry out political indoctrination.
Russia
Russian authorities have violated international law related to the right to education in occupied territories of Ukraine.[42]
The Russian school curriculum imposed in occupied areas of Ukraine includes history textbooks that justify Russia's invasion, portrays Ukraine as a "neo-Nazi state," carries out anti-Ukrainian political indoctrination, and strictly limits instruction in the Ukrainian language.
Ukrainian children under occupation receive military training as part of the school curriculum. Russian authorities require secondary schools in occupied Ukrainian territory to share the names of students ages 18 and older, whom the Russian authorities deem eligible to be drafted into the Russian armed forces.[43]
In areas of the Kharkivska region under occupation between March and September 2022, Human Rights Watch found that Russian authorities retaliated against students and teachers who criticized the invasion, punished distance learning or teaching of the Ukrainian curriculum, and threatened parents with loss of custody of their children, detention and other forms of retaliation if they did not enroll their children in "Russian" schools, or if their children studied the Ukrainian curriculum remotely.
Authorities used coercion, detention, ill-treatment, and torture to pressure Ukrainian teachers to work or to hand over students' files and other school data. Authorities continue to pressure Ukrainian teachers and parents in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.
Human Rights Watch found Russia's imposition of changes to educational curricula in occupied Ukrainian territories violates the prohibition against propaganda for war, the child's right to mother-tongue education, parents' right of choice regarding their children's education, and respect for the child's "own cultural identity, language and values" and the "national values" of the child's country of origin. The changes imposed also violate international humanitarian law,[44] which prohibits unnecessary changes to laws in occupied territory, including Ukraine's 2017 Law on Education, and obligates the occupying power to "facilitate the proper working of all institutions devoted to the care and education of children."[45]
China
Soon after Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, the Chinese Communist Party top leadership issued a secret communique calling for an ideological struggle against "universal values" like human rights.[46] Since then, the Chinese government has made tightening ideological controls, including over education, a top priority.[47]
In Hong Kong, Human Rights Watch found the Chinese government has increasingly politicized education since imposing the draconian National Security Law on June 30, 2020.[48] Authorities have harshly punished critics of the government, created a highly repressive national security regime, and enforced ideological controls on the city's residents.
The authorities have revised school curriculum and guidelines to mandate political indoctrination from kindergarten through primary and secondary school, with the aim of "systematically cultivating students' … sense of national identity from an early age."[49] In 2023, the Hong Kong government eliminated Liberal Studies, a required subject for most secondary school students that encouraged critical thinking, blaming it for the 2019 protests and replacing it with one that fosters patriotism and requires trips to mainland China.[50] Primary school students are encouraged to take similar trips.[51] Secondary school students are taught "Xi Jinping Thought,"[52] while publicly funded university students must take national security courses.[53]
In addition, Human Rights Watch research showed China's education policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) is significantly reducing the access of ethnic Tibetans to education in their mother tongue. The government policy, though called "bilingual education," is in practice leading to the gradual replacement of Tibetan by Chinese as the medium of instruction in primary schools throughout the region, except for classes studying Tibetan as a language. Since the 1960s, Chinese has been the language of instruction in nearly all middle and high schools in the TAR, where just under half of Tibetans in China live, but new educational practices introduced by the government in the TAR are now leading more primary schools and even kindergartens to use Chinese as the teaching language for Tibetan students.
In addition, Tibetan-medium private schools-which, in some areas, were the only type of schools where children could learn in their mother tongue-have been forcibly closed.[54]
We recommend that the Special Rapporteur:
- Urge all states not to use the education system to carry out political indoctrination or assimilation, ensure that the education process is free of any political propaganda and propaganda for war, and where relevant, respect the provisions on occupation in international humanitarian law.
- Urge all states to guarantee children's right to mother-tongue education that respects their cultural identity and values and the national values of their country of origin.
- Urge all states to ensure that education staff can exercise their duties and students can follow education curricula without harassment and interference by authorities.
- Urge all states to investigate all incidents of harassment, intimidation, and ill-treatment of education workers, students, and parents of students, and hold perpetrators to account.
- Call on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate restrictions on mother-tongue education.
