Allegations against Russell Brand and, separately, David Walliams have led to calls for greater legal protection for 16- and 17-year-olds from sexual exploitation by older adults. A staggered consent law is one route favoured by campaigners, supported by some Labour MPs. Claire Waxman, the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, has called for “serious conversations” on the potential for legislative change.
The barrister Charlotte Proudman, who specialises in law regarding violence against women and girls, said: “Staggered, or graduated, age of consent means that the law takes account of the age difference between sexual partners, rather than treating 16 as the point at which a child can legally consent to sexual activity with someone of any age. A move to staggered consent “would place responsibility on the older adult”, she said, rather than requiring a teenage complainant to demonstrate grooming, coercion or exploitation. We want the law to recognise children – 16 and 17 years old – as children who need to be protected in all frameworks of the law.” Stone said there could be a “huge power imbalance” between a 16-year-old living at home and a 21-year-old with money and independence.
The law on the issue in the rest of the world is complex and varied. Some countries have extra safeguards built in for 16- and 17-year-olds. Canada, for example, recognises age difference as a factor in determining exploitation for this age group.
For 14- and 15-year-olds, Canadian law criminalises any sexual activity if a partner is five or more years older. Prof Roger Ingham, the director of the Centre for Sexual Health Research at the University of Southampton, said: “My question, as a researcher, is: what is the evidence that it actually works or doesn’t work to protect young people?” He said there was no strong evidence that different countries with different ages had completely different patterns of sexual behaviour or outcomes. But he said it was a difficult question to answer “because a lot of these cases are simply not reported”.
Ingham said “tinkering with the law” could divert attention from other efforts, including better sex education, and risked young people avoiding seeking contraceptive advice, or other support they needed, if their relationship was deemed illegal. Dr Sophie King-Hill, an associate professor at the University of Birmingham researching sexual behaviour of children and young people, said people were “looking for fixes, looking for blame, looking for gaps in the law”, but she also questioned where the evidence was that it worked. I can see where it’s coming from.
People feel like they need to do something, and I’m not necessarily opposed to it in its totality, but I think it’s really naive to see it as such a solution to something that’s really complex and complicated within society.” King-Hill said it could create a false sense of protection for young people, and it risked children and young people not coming forward “because they’ll be worried they’ve broken the law”.
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