SCOTLAND – LIBERALISING THE AGE OF CONSENT

WARNING : This briefing sets out
the explicit content of the proposals

March 2008

The Scottish Government is currently consulting on recommendations of the Scottish Law Commission (SLC) that will undermine the age of consent in Scotland. The proposals include allowing children between the age of 13 and 16 to engage in full sexual intercourse and allowing over 16s to engage in certain sexual activities with children two years younger. The changes will apply to both homosexual and heterosexual acts.

Implementing these recommendations would send out a very powerful permissive message to teenagers and place vulnerable young people at risk.

Endangering young people

An age of consent exists to protect young people who lack the physical, emotional and psychological maturity properly to consent to sexual activity or to cope with its consequences. Liberalising the age of consent sends out a strong signal to teenagers that sexual activity is normal at that younger age.

The age of consent was raised to 16 in the UK in 1885 to protect girls from human trafficking for the sex trade, a result of the work of Christian campaigner Josephine Butler. Christians have been at the forefront of campaigning for child protection. Their work will be undone if the SLC get their way. The recommendations related to teenage sex contained in the SLC’s report and draft bill are extremely confused and will remove many of the protections provided by the current law.

Under the plans, children aged 13-15 would be permitted to have sexual intercourse with each other.¹ This is nothing short of legalising teenage sex. It sends out a message to 13-year-olds that having sex at their age is perfectly normal. It would allow a 15-year-old boy to have sex with a 13-year-old girl or a 15-year-old boy to commit buggery with a 13-year-old boy.

A further element of the plans involves allowing a young person aged 16 or over to masturbate a child under 16, where there is no more than 2 years between them.² Although any form of penile penetration would be unlawful, other sexual activity would not be.³ Criminalising only penile penetration ignores the significance and potentially abusive nature of other forms of sexual activity that would be possible. For example, a 16-year-old would be able to engage in sexual activity with a 14-year-old involving penetration with implements. This would extend to a 17-year-old with a 14-year-old where the older party’s birthday happened to arrive earlier than the younger party’s, and they had had a pre-existing relationship involving sexual activity.⁴

Liberalising the age of consent in this way would expose thousands of children to the legal advances of manipulative peers – heterosexual or homosexual. A considerable amount of child abuse is carried out by young people. According to Home Office research, adolescents commit up to a third of all sex offences and many of the victims are children.⁵

An absolute age of consent protects young people because it deems them incapable of consenting to sexual activity. Changing the law would create the possibility that vulnerable children could be cross-examined in a trial to decide if they consented to sexual activity.

Health concerns

There are serious health risks stemming from earlier sexual activity.  In particular, medical opinion recognises that young women are biologically more susceptible to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) than older women.⁶ Key medical factors include physiological and immunological issues:

1. Physiological – The hormonal activity which causes the development of secondary sexual characteristics also causes the vaginal lining to convert from just a single cell layer in thickness to multiple cell layer thickness. The thinner the cell layer thickness at the time of first sexual intercourse, the greater the likelihood of trauma (coital injury) which may facilitate the spread of STI pathogens. Another key element of the vagina’s defence against infection, an antibacterial mucus, only develops up to two years after a girl has had her first period.
2. Immunological – A teenage girl is still immunologically immature. In particular, levels of a key antibody called secretory IgA have only reached 60% of the adult level by puberty, and this level increases slowly thereafter.

Laws dealing with gambling, knives, firearms, solvents, alcohol and road vehicles all place considerable restrictions on under-18s for safety reasons. In Scotland the legal age for buying cigarettes was recently raised to 18. Yet the Scottish Law Commission’s recommendations would legalise sex for under-16s, when one single act of intercourse carries the risk of teenage pregnancy or contracting a sexually transmitted infection. The changes would also apply to anal intercourse, despite the fact that it carries a 2,700 times higher risk of contracting HIV/Aids than vaginal intercourse.⁷

Conclusion

The age of consent provides great protection for vulnerable young people. When rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases among young people are such a concern, it is irresponsible to liberalise the law covering under-age sex.

You may send your response to the consultation by post or e-mail to:

The Christian Institute, PO Box 23282, Edinburgh, EH1 2XU
A charity registered in Scotland. Charity No. SC039220

T: (0131) 226 3555   E: info@christian.org.uk   W: www.christian.org.uk