New UN report says children can consent to sex with adults

[Clymene]

And that there should be no criminal charges for adults who have sexual relations with children.

The International Commission of Jurists - 'Composed of 60 eminent judges and lawyers from all regions of the world, the International Commission of Jurists promotes and protects human rights through the Rule of Law, by using its unique legal expertise to develop and strengthen national and international justice systems' - has published a a Human Rights-Based Approach to Criminal Law Proscribing Conduct Associated with Sex, Reproduction, Drug Use, HIV, Homelessness and Poverty.

They've (ironically) called it the 8 March (IWD) Principles. I say ironically because as you can probably guess, a lot of the report is about men's right to have sex without fear of prosecution.

The entire report is basically decriminalise all the things.

Children can consent to sex:

sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law. In this context, the enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them.

Punters and pimps should not be prosecuted:

The exchange of sexual services between consenting adults for money, goods or services and communication with another about, advertising an offer for, or sharing premises with another for the purpose of exchanging sexual services between consenting adults for money, goods or services, whether in a public or private place, may not be criminalized, absent coercion, force, abuse of authority or fraud.
Criminal law may not proscribe the conduct of third parties who, directly or indirectly, for receipt of a financial or material benefit, under fair conditions – without coercion, force, abuse of authority or fraud – facilitate, manage, organize, communicate with another, advertise, provide information about, provide or rent premises for the purpose of the exchange of sexual services between consenting adults for money, goods or services.

Feels batshit to me but I have no idea how much power and influence they have.

icj2.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/8-MARCH-Principles-FINAL-printer-version-1-MARCH-2023.pdf

Well this is a slip in the very wrong direction. Very worrying. So wrong.

DemiColon · 15/04/2023 21:50
I also think this is talking about people under 18, rather than 16, which is significant to me. (I may be wrong here but that is how I am reading it and a lot of UN stuff seems to see 18 as the appropriate age of majority.) There are a heck of a lot of people who have sex, willingly, before they are 18.

I doubt that. The age of consent is way below 18 and below 16 in many countries. It is shocking to see France and Germany’s for example. Easy to see men made the laws. In France the age of consent is only 18 where a relative is involved (among others) making it seem as though French law reflects that a relative’s involvement is to be expected.

Sorry, the involvement or not of a relative is not relevant to the OP but I was struck by our close neighbour’s laws mentioning this factor.

This site has information on the different countries’ ages of consent.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/age-of-consent-by-country

@NumberTheory are you a lawyer?

Your comments seem to suggest that you are and, if so, it’d be interesting to know what is your area of legal speciality?

More specifically, as you’re defending these principles, I was also wondering how you felt that, in a matter of law i.e., a dispute that sex between an adult (legally defined) and a child (legally defined) was consensual or not, how would or could it be determined that the child had the capacity to consent, not just if the child consented?

Whose job would it be to determine that capacity to consent and what kind of criteria might that be based on?

I’m not defending the principles as a whole, there are some I don’t agree with and others I haven’t looked at. Just pointing out I don’t think this one is bad. It reflects what most child development experts say about children. And I don’t think it would change the landscape for the England and Wales if we decided to include it in our considerations when we made and enforced laws. I also don’t think criminal law is an appropriate tool to discourage most sexual engagement by teens that they wanted to engage in.

I’m not a lawyer. I studied philosophy at university, worked as a police officer (many, many years ago) and later with civil rights organizations and volunteered with sexual assault survivors. I have an interest in the ethics of criminal law as well as how it can be effective in sexual assault cases.

I’ve never had to consider if a child had the capacity to consent. In England and Wales there is a minimum age of 13 under which it’s considered that no child could be capable of consent. I don’t know, after that, the ins and outs of how it’s determined, though when I was in the police it was a combination of questions asked of the child, consideration of the suspect (i.e. any power differential, if they groomed the victim, etc.) and expert opinion. If the child is under 16 the prosecution can fall back on sex with a child under 16 as a crime if they don’t think it will be possible to prove a lack of consent (whether due to capacity or because courts are notoriously poor at believing sexual assault victims on consent) or if there are other factors that mean it’s in the child’s best interests. As I read it, I don’t think principle 16 impacts any of that.

A movement to have paedophilia accepted as just another sexuality like, for example, homosexuality, has been around for years. PIE infiltrated the Left in the Seventies and encouraged the lowering of the age of consent, with some people encouraging lowering to a ludicrous age.

I wonder how this would affect the vile men and boys who groom young teenage girls who believe they have a boyfriend, then go on to pass them around other men and boys. In theory the girls consent but the reality is so far removed from that. But I cannot see how they could be prosecuted and convicted with this in law

The UN falls yet further in my estimation. I agree that the wording can be read as allowing paedophillic sex because the child can be deemed to have ‘consented’. If it shouldn’t be read like that, then it should be written so it couldn’t be.

Some people who had lost traction as members of PIE seem to have regained it via WPATH, and these guidelines are very much in line with that.

I feel like this. Not helped by living in and being from Scotland. Wake me up when it's all over.

Aren't they just? I read the OP, and my first thought was, this is WPATH all over again.