Campaign Group to Sue Government Over ‘Child Abuse’ Sex Education

Anna Loutfi, an equality and human rights barrister, during an interview with NTD's "British Thought Leaders" programme in London. NTD

Laurence Fox’s campaign group is planning on suing the government over claims the Department of Education is failing to protect children from “child abuse” radical sex education from external providers.

The Bad Law Project, which was set up by actor and leader of the politial party Reclaim Mr. Fox, is planning on suing the Department of Education over sex education providers who they claim are acting “unlawfully and criminally.”

The case, announced at a House of Commons event on Thursday, is acting on behalf of multiple families who say that their children were taught extreme sex education without their knowledge or consent and claim, and as a result, that have either been harmed medically or psychologically.

The Bad Law Project said that personal, social, health, and economic education (PSHE) as practiced in British schools today is negatively impacting children’s mental and physical health, increasing children’s vulnerability to social, sexual, and political exploitation.

It said that this provides mechanisms through which third-sector groups actively promote harmful political ideologies in schools, in breach of the fundamental rights of children and their families.

Anna Loutfi, an equality and human rights barrister, during an interview with NTD's "British Thought Leaders" programme in London. NTD

Bad Law Project lawyer Anna Loutfi told The Epoch Times that as a matter of civil law, “We’re going to sue the Department for Education for negligence and failing to uphold their duty of care to protect children from being politically indoctrinated.”

She added that they may also consider criminal action too, adding that what goes on with PHSE is “child abuse.”

Ms. Loutfi also said they think that some of the materials “meet the criminal threshold for non contact child sex abuse.”

She claimed that the Department of Education has “totally failed” to uphold “safeguarding policies because teaching and promoting gender ideology, the idea that you’re born in the wrong body is promoting self harm amongst children, and now it’s reached levels of social contagion.”

“Also what we’re seeing is an attempt to destroy the legal jurisdiction of the family, over the child and replace it with a state or with a corporate entity that is the education provider who is backed by state money, taxpayers money,” said Ms. Loutfi.

“What has been taught to children in school is criminal child abuse,” Mr. Fox told The Epoch Times, adding that “it needs to be abolished.”

“And then an urgent inquiry needs to be set up to find out how this vile indoctrination was allowed to enter our schools in the first place,” he added.

The claim has not been filed yet and is currently being crowdfunded.

Laurence Fox (left) and Andrew Bridgen ahead of a Reclaim Party press conference in London, dated May 10, 2023. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

‘Indoctrinates Children’

In a report, The Bad Law Project said that PSHE encourages discrimination against teachers, children, and parents who hold “the wrong views” in breach of UK equality law and fundamental human rights.

It also said it could be undermining social cohesion and may be “exacerbating racial, religious, and cultural tensions in our society, encouraging unhealthy resentment of the education system and a profound breakdown of trust between schools, parents, and wider communities.”

The report also said that gender ideology is a recipe for child self-harm simply on the grounds that it encourages (sometimes very) young children “to see their healthy bodies as ‘wrong’ and sources of unhappiness.”

“Subtle techniques of coercive persuasion abound across PSHE curricula, through which the child is moved to regard their ‘gender identity’ as the ultimate expression of who they are, making them different, special, and unique,” it said.

The Bad Law Project said that this “indoctrinates children to develop a mortal terror of puberty, the idea that it is ‘OK’ to pause or block puberty is justified” and that via PSHE, the third sector can “effectively provide a gateway for children to a niche market in puberty-blocking drugs and chest binders which stunt adolescent growth with innumerable medical complications.”

‘Damaging Materials’

British MPs have in the past two years discussed how materials are being flooded into schools by external providers who are exposing children to “deeply inappropriate, wildly inaccurate, sexually explicit, and damaging materials” in the name of sex education.

A recent analysis, by the British think tank Civitas, urged parents to be “vigilant” over what children are being taught in classrooms by some self-declared experts.

The statistics, gathered by Deltapoll, found that just under a third of 16- to 18-year-olds say they have been taught “a woman can have a penis.”

One in five has been told that “a man can get pregnant.”

Miriam Cates MP speaks during the Northern Research Group conference at Doncaster Racecourse, England, on June 9, 2023. Danny Lawson/PA Wire

Conservative MP Miriam Cates has said that pupils were being subjected to relationships and sex education classes that are “age inappropriate, extreme, sexualising, and inaccurate.”

“Graphic lessons on oral sex, how to choke your partner safely, and 72 genders. This is what passes for relationships and sex education in British schools,” she said.

In a paper published in May, the London-based Policy Exchange think tank said that most secondary schools are failing to tell parents if their child wants to identify as another gender.

It found that schools are not reliably informing parents as soon as a pupil expresses the wish to change gender. This means that because of a school’s “Self-ID” policy, the first time a parent is informed of their child’s transition is on a letter home, where the child’s new name is referenced.

Schools and external sex education providers have also been accused of hiding materials from parents.

In June, the founder of No Secret Lesson Plans In UK Schools, Clare Page, who wanted her daughter’s sex education lessons released publicly lost a case after the judge ruled that the commercial interests of the third-party sex provider outweighed the public interest of a parent requesting the materials.

The Epoch Times contacted the Department of Education for comment.