On 10th October 2007, a group of advocacy organizations in Croatia filed the first human rights legal challenge to a faith- based sex-education program with roots in the United States.

The Centre for Reproductive Rights, Interrights, and Centre for Education and Counselling of Women (CESI) submitted the complaint with the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) against Croatia for its sponsorship of a gender-biased and medically inaccurate program. The groups argue that Croatia is endangering the lives of its young people through misleading and inadequate sex education and is therefore, in breach of its obligations under a major international human rights treaty, the European Social Charter. Croatia has sponsored the extracurricular sex-education program Teen STAR for a decade and is now seeking to mandate a nearly identical program. Teen STAR (Sexuality Teaching in the context of Adult Responsibility) draws on Catholic teachings, promoting abstinence at the expense of other viable alternatives such as contraception. Its founder and international director, Dr. Hanna Klaus is based in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Klaus says that Teen STAR has been awarded a U.S. government PEPFAR grant. The complaint also calls on the Croatian government to train teachers to deliver appropriate and good quality sex education and to set up an oversight process to regulate, monitor and evaluate the school-based curriculum.

Source: CRR