Sexual Abuse, Legal Age, Child Marriage

• Pages: 160-163

Contenidos

• The Issue.
• Legal and Policy Considerations.
• Practice Examples.
• References.

Page 160

The Issue

Sexual abuse can lead directly to HIV infection of both girls and boys. Sexual abuse of children occurs in many different settings and to children of all social strata. Girls are especially susceptible to sexual abuse by older men. Some girls engage in sexual relations with older men for money or other forms of support and protection; these "sugar daddies," as they are frequently called, seek out younger girls because they believe that they are less likely to be HIV-positive. This belief in turn leads to a decrease in condom use and a greater risk of HIV infection and pregnancy for the girls. Related to the issue of legal age for consent to sexual relations is the question of child marriage, a matter of great cultural and religious sensitivity in some countries but one that may put young girls at greater risk of HIV infection.

Legal and Policy Considerations

Governments protect against child abuse through, inter alia, the enactment of statutory rape laws. Generally, these laws make it a crime to engage in sexual relations with a child below a stated age, even with the child's consent. Some countries, however, allow a defense of consent for sexual relations with children above a certain age (e.g., Grenada, if the child is 16 or older) while others only allow it in limited circumstances and/or for defendants below a certain age (e.g., Saint Lucia, if the defendant is under 21 and has not previously been charged with a similar offense). The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been adopted by all but two countries in the world, specifies that all persons under the age of 18 are children; the attendant lack of maturity and vulnerability justify the wide range of protections provided by the Convention. Nevertheless, statutory rape laws frequently put the age of consent below 18 and even go as low as age 12. Without specifying a universally applicable minimum age, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has stated that 13 is too low.

Statutory rape laws are frequently gender specific and may exclude boys or provide for different ages of consent for boys and girls. If different, the age of consent for girls is typically higher than for boys. Thus, young boys are frequently deprived of equal protection of the law.

Statutory rape laws may raise other questions. While it is imperative to protect vulnerable children from...