ROME, Italy (AFP) — Italy’s government presented a bill Wednesday that would require parental approval for sex education classes, which are not mandatory in the predominantly Catholic country.

The bill is designed “to ensure… the prior informed consent of families in relation to school activities concerning sexuality,” read a statement published after a cabinet meeting.

If passed by lawmakers, parents will need to give prior written consent “for participation in… educational offerings that concern sexuality-related topics”, read the statement.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is a self-described “Christian mother”, who won the election in 2022 championing traditional family values.

The Vatican, meanwhile, still holds outsize influence in the country with its majority Catholic population, making the subject of sex education in schools largely taboo.

Moves to make sex education mandatory in schools have had little traction in the past.

Save the Children Italy found in February that only 47 per cent of Italian adolescents had had some kind of sexual education at school.

That fell to 37 per cent in the more impoverished southern regions of the country, as well as Sicily and Sardinia, it found.

A 2020 European Union report said that when sexual education is taught in Italy, it “tends to focus solely on the biological aspects, rather than on any wider psychological, societal or emotional aspects of sexuality education”.

In March, the Palermo-based Cesie research centre called moves to implement sex education in Italian schools “inconsistent, blocked by structural barriers and political resistance”.

It charged “far-right movements” as casting such education “as a threat to family values and national identity”.

“By blocking education on relationships, consent, and sexuality, they reinforce gender stereotypes and uphold a patriarchal system rife with gender-based violence,” wrote the group.

Abortion has been legal in Italy since 1978 but a majority of gynaecologists in the country refuse to terminate pregnancies, citing moral or religious objections.

This has resulted in wildly varying services across the country, with some hospitals and clinics providing no abortion services at all.