In light of the recent raise in the age of consent, I want to now look at how this impacts offenders and those who could potentially become offenders. The age of consent was raised in response to growing concerns of youth being exploited for sexual purposes.
Since protection from sexual exploitation is already covered in the law, the increase to 16 would definitely help in the instances of internet luring for the purpose of sex where there is no exploitation in the sense of prostitution and pornography. This would deter adults who would want to prey on the younger “vulnerable” population.
Some organizations, such as Egale “a national organization that advances equality and justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans-identified people and their families across Canada” (http://www.egale.ca/ ) opposed the increase in age of consent due to concerns that it would increase the criminalization of non-harmful sexual activity. This means that some teenagers could be charged with a sexual offence alongside pedophiles. While the close in age exemptions do protect against this in some instances, there are still issues where a person could be charged and no harm existed, or if the accused is just over the age where it is legal to engage in sexual activity.
For a person under 14 years, the older person must not be older than 2 years, and for a youth under the age of 16 but over 14, there must be an age difference of no less than 5 years. If a couple in question are 13 and 16, then the 16 year old can be charged with an offence. How different would it be from a 13 to 15 year old, not taking into consideration individual differences?
Another argument proposed by Egale is that increasing the age of consent will actually make it easier for offenders to take advantage of those younger than 16. Making sexual acts illegal will deter younger individuals to disclose sexual activity thereby isolating younger people and making them targets for offenders.
The balance of giving young people the freedom of sexual expression and protection from offenders is tricky.
Does this law actually help to prevent harm or can it cause more harm?
Is this law, which presumably errs on the side of caution, really protecting youth more than before the change? Or is it causing more harm by labelling some teenagers as sexual offenders when they just didn't think of the consequences?
It isn’t as simple as it seems.
L.L.
1 comment:
Wow...A,LT,LL,and P you have really got me thinking...big kudos to you all for investigating this difficult issue and trying to make some sense of it in our changed world...I'm a 64 year old pre-law student currently completing an assingment on cyber stalkers and how the W3 Consortium does not give a rip but organizations like the Family Online Safety Institute have taken on the task of helping parents protect their children. I was sexually abused by a gay school teacher in grade seven and the date of the occurence,about 1958...the shame...the whole school knew about it...the shame...terrible...part of what led to a life of drug addiction...(16 years clean now) My question is if I had been 13 in 2000 instead of 1959 would I just shrug it off? And how about those parents who don't know about FOSI and don't move all their children's computers into the family room and participate in their children's lives. Do you agree that this comes down to who is vulnerabe to sexual exploitation and who is not. And for those who are; how did they get that way and what keeps them that way. Check this out globally by Google-ing 'age of consent by state' notice that there is are no limits in some Moslem countries. I'm against ageism and for mutual consent by informed, emotionally mature young and/or older adults as much as you are but I ask you as social work students, "How will we establish laws that protect the vulnerable? And how are we going to go about defining vulnerable so those law makers can put it into a language all citizens will understand?" I love your blog and support you in your challenges. I will be following your discourse.
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