News / Africa
SA court legalises sex for children as young as 12 years
05 Oct 2013 at 08:31hrs | Views
South Africa's highest court has made it legal for children as young as 12 to have sex.
The ruling means teenagers between the ages of 12 and 16 need no longer fear legal consequences if they engage in sexual activity.
But only with each other and not with an adult.
The Constitutional Court said, in effect, that children of that age were having sex anyway.
It declared sections 15 and 16 of the Sexual Offences Act, which criminalised kissing, petting and penetration between young teenagers, to be unconstitutional.
The court ordered the Department of Justice to remove all the criminal records of those minors who had already been found guilty of sexual crimes.
The decision caused outrage in some quarters, with critics saying it further eroded the country's moral base and added to the headaches of parents trying to teach their children to behave responsibly.
The Reverend Kenneth Meshoe, leader of the African Christian Democratic Party, told Daily Sun: "Our government started the whole thing by teaching sex at schools.
"This is an assault on morality," he said.
The government had already stripped parents of the authority to punish their children when they did wrong.
"The children of today don't care," said Meshoe.
"They know there will be no consequences for their actions."
The ConCourt, in a unanimous judgment written by Justice Sisi Khampepe, said it had seen no evidence that adolescents were deterred from having sex by the two sections of the law.
"Rather," said the judges, "the evidence we have before us is to the contrary.
"It shows that the impugned provisions increase the likelihood of adolescents participating in unsafe sexual behaviour, and therefore actually increase the materialisation of the associated risks."
The government was given 18 months to change the law.
The judges also ordered a halt to investigations and proceedings against adolescents while Parliament remedied the law's "defects".
Justice Department spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga said he respected the ruling but was worried that the children might interpret the ruling to mean a "free for all".
Mhaga said: "We all have responsibility to mould the behavioural patterns of children - given their access to technology and internet and their desire to experiment, to their detriment."
The ruling means teenagers between the ages of 12 and 16 need no longer fear legal consequences if they engage in sexual activity.
But only with each other and not with an adult.
The Constitutional Court said, in effect, that children of that age were having sex anyway.
It declared sections 15 and 16 of the Sexual Offences Act, which criminalised kissing, petting and penetration between young teenagers, to be unconstitutional.
The court ordered the Department of Justice to remove all the criminal records of those minors who had already been found guilty of sexual crimes.
The decision caused outrage in some quarters, with critics saying it further eroded the country's moral base and added to the headaches of parents trying to teach their children to behave responsibly.
The Reverend Kenneth Meshoe, leader of the African Christian Democratic Party, told Daily Sun: "Our government started the whole thing by teaching sex at schools.
"This is an assault on morality," he said.
"The children of today don't care," said Meshoe.
"They know there will be no consequences for their actions."
The ConCourt, in a unanimous judgment written by Justice Sisi Khampepe, said it had seen no evidence that adolescents were deterred from having sex by the two sections of the law.
"Rather," said the judges, "the evidence we have before us is to the contrary.
"It shows that the impugned provisions increase the likelihood of adolescents participating in unsafe sexual behaviour, and therefore actually increase the materialisation of the associated risks."
The government was given 18 months to change the law.
The judges also ordered a halt to investigations and proceedings against adolescents while Parliament remedied the law's "defects".
Justice Department spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga said he respected the ruling but was worried that the children might interpret the ruling to mean a "free for all".
Mhaga said: "We all have responsibility to mould the behavioural patterns of children - given their access to technology and internet and their desire to experiment, to their detriment."
Source - Dailysun
