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France to set legal age of sexual consent as 15
France plans to fix the legal age of sexual consent as 15, meaning sex with someone younger than that would be considered rape.
Equality Minister Marlène Schiappa welcomed the move, which follows advice from doctors and legal experts. Currently, prosecutors must prove sex with someone under 15 was forced in order to bring rape charges. The change comes amid uproar over two recent cases of men accused of having sex with 11-year-old girls.
Under the existing legislation, if there is no violence or coercion proved, offenders may only be charged with sexual abuse of a minor and not rape. This has a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (£66,000; $87,000).
[...] The government is to approve the new age limit as part of a package of other laws against sexual violence and harassment in the coming weeks. It had been discussing whether to set the age as 13 or 15, which is what groups fighting violence against children had campaigned for.
Les commentaires déplorables.
Also at The Local, NPR, and SBS.
Related: French Porn Star Hits Back at President Emmanuel Macron's Plans to Censor Online Porn
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday March 08 2018, @02:57AM (4 children)
Because knowledge of medicine and mental health is tenuous [sciencemag.org] at best.
What is your new standard going to be? Fertility/first period? That would effectively lower the age of consent for most girls/women, and could have loopholes, like drug or diet-induced early onset of puberty. Mental maturity? Probably impossible to determine without privacy-killing "mind reading" technology, and subject to bias.
There can be no common sense or evidence-based approach, only arbitrary laws for things like this, or which drugs to ban, etc.
Have voters considered ballot initiatives on this topic? We could add to the clusterfuck with a little direct democracy. Let's see which states can get the age of consent to 19 or 11.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @04:16AM (1 child)
I wanna see a state get the age of consent to 33. Isn't that part of some wacky religious tradition?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @12:34PM
From the brain development view point that would make much more sense.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/ [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892678/ [nih.gov]
etcetc
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday March 08 2018, @05:14AM (1 child)
I agree with the first bit. Even if it is arbitrary, trying to determine, on a case-by-case basis whether someone is mature enough to consent would be a legal and constitutional nightmare.
As for age of consent laws in North America [wikipedia.org], Canada has a uniform age of consent (16), in the US (ranging from 16-18) and Mexico (ranging from onset of puberty to 14)*, the age of consent is set on a state-by-state basis.
I can't speak to Canada or Mexico, but in the US, representative governments presumably enact age of consent laws commensurate with the preferences of the electorate.
*Which makes this [youtube.com] a *little* less disturbing. :)
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by ewk on Thursday March 08 2018, @09:43AM
Of course it would be a legal and constitutional nightmare, after all, this is not a legal and constitutional problem.
It's a biological and psychological problem. Solving that with some arbitrary limit on only one (age) of the biological factors involved seems overly simplistic.
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