CHILDREN’S RIGHTS TO INFORMATION

PLASTIC FOIL TO FIGHT CHILD ABUSE?

Resumo

The last decades witnessed adverse developments relating to child protection in several European countries, with Russia and Hungary being notable examples. The backsliding includes limited access to health services, maltreatment and abuse of children in various care institutions, segregation in education, banning LGBTIQ content for minors including the obligation imposed on bookstores to wrap in plastic foil those children and youth books that include LGBTIQ characters, or the lowering of the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12. Against this backdrop, the object of the paper is to investigate and evaluate the laws adopted in the last decade restricting children’s access to information on LGBTIQ issues, which were introduced by several Council of Europe member States, based on the argument that exposure of children to LGBTIQ content would be detrimental to their well-being or not in line with the best interests of the child. Developments will be covered through qualitative methods: through the critical analysis of the opinions of the Venice Commission as well as the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union. The paper explores the decision in the infringement proceedings launched by the European Commission against Hungary, which has attracted an unprecedently high number of interveners before the CJEU, and which is expected to be delivered in June 2024. It must be noted that this procedure forms part of a series of measures introduced by the European Union to address the dismantling of democracy and the rule of law in Hungary. It is argued that while the aims of the said laws are legitimate in the abstract, the legislative ban on “homosexual propaganda” produces effects of discrimination and stigmatization which are contrary to the values they aim to promote and embodies a predisposed bias on the part of a heterosexual majority against a homosexual minority. Furthermore, it is suggested that information protects, while taboos leave children defenceless. Thus, children are entitled to receive comprehensive, accurate, scientifically sound and culturally sensitive sexual health education. By banning the depiction of “divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth, sex change or homosexuality”, they are deprived of this right.