Jamaica Parliament studies raising the age of consent.... "My fear is that by moving from 16 to 18 years old, you are just creating a broader band of criminals,"....108 out of every 1,000 babies born in Jamaica are born to teenage mothers, and that 25 per cent of babies born in Jamaica were to girls between the ages of 10 and 19 years old. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

BY BALFORD HENRY Senior staff reporter balfordh@jamaicaobserver.com  Sunday, November 16, 2014    

CHILDREN'S Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison thinks that Jamaica can learn lessons from Canada about increasing the age of consent.

(L-R) FRAZER BINNS… asked what was the mischief
 that the Office of the Children’s Advocate was trying to correct.
JOHNSON SMITH… not sure that the age of consent was
 the root of the problem

She noted that in May 2008, by virtue of its Tackling Violent Crime Act, the Canadian Parliament amended its laws and increased the age of consent.

But, although they only increased the age from 14, as it had been since 1890, to 16 years, which is similar to Jamaica's, she felt it supported the view that it is generally expected that governments should enact laws best suited to their domestic realities.

"It is perfectly acceptable, and even expected, that domestic government(s) should pursue and enact laws which are best able to address their domestic realities," she told the joint select committee of Parliament reviewing the sexual offences Acts at Gordon House last Wednesday.

She said that the Canadian law was precipitated by the case of a 31-year-old male predator who travelled from his home in Texas in the United States to Canada to meet a 14-year-old boy, with whom he had communicated on the Internet.

The man engaged the child in sexual activity and committed the act of buggery upon him. However, when he was arrested, he could only be charged with the relatively minor offence of possession of child pornography, because the young boy, who reportedly suffered from suicidal tendencies and social anxiety disorder, insisted that he had consented to the sexual activity.     

"Additionally, because there was no relationship of authority or dependency, there were no other alternatives open to law enforcement," she explained.

In June 2006, the Canadian Government proposed a bill to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16, while creating a close-in-age exemption for sex between 14-15 year olds and partners up to five years older, and keeping an existing close-in-age clause for sex between 12-13 year olds and partners up to two years older.

The initiative also maintains a temporary exception for already existing marriages of 14 and 15 year olds, but forbids new marriages like these in the future.

Gordon Harrision said that another reason for increasing the age of consent was to help teenagers feel less pressured to have sex at a younger age, as it provides an effective negotiation tool for those who may be more inclined to say no to early sexual activity, because the law has set the tone by making it illegal.

She said, however, that she was not proposing that the Canadian initiative should be a blueprint which would bind Jamaica in any particular way.

"If this honourable committee finds favour with the idea and the theory of it, it would be for us to craft carefully established age bands that this particular Parliament would be comfortable with, and move forward with what is actually acceptable here," she stated.

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