Paraguay passes Russia-style ban on ‘gay propaganda’ in schools

Paraguay has passed a Russian style ‘gay propaganda’ ban in schools.

The Ministry of Education has stopped public schools from using or spreading materials on ‘gender ideology’, in an effort to promote ‘traditional values’ and the ‘traditional family’.

Like Russia’s ban on promoting ‘non-traditional relationships’, the ban on ‘gender ideology’ is a thinly-veiled attack on women and LGBTI people.

Enrique Riera, the education minister, said the government has a responsibility of promoting a family of ‘father, mother and children’.

Paraguay will ‘burn LGBTI-friendly books’

‘We naturally respect different options, but we’re not going to instill them in our public schools’, Riera said, according to ABC Color.

Riera has said he will also burn any books that spread ‘gender ideology’.

SOMOSGAY, a Paraguayan LGBTQ advocacy organization, condemned the ban, saying the term ‘gender ideology’ was ‘invented by conservative groups to keep justifying violence and discrimination against women and LGBTI people.’

‘What is really happening here is the suppression of education about equality and discrimination, which is an international obligation of the Paraguayan state,’ Erika Guevara Rosas, the Americas director at Amnesty International, said.

The Montevideo Consensus, adopted by Paraguay and other Latin American nations in 2013, requires countries to end discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

‘Excluding education on equality from the curriculum is tantamount to state promotion of violence and discrimination, with extremely grave consequence,’ Guevara Rosas said.

There is a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Paraguay. There are also no anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBTI people.

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