According to the UN, nothing should stand in the way of minors having sexual intercourse with adults as long as the former ‘consent.’
The United Nations’ International Committee of Jurists (ICJ), the intergovernmental organization’s principal judicial organ, has unveiled a new set of proposals for legal principles.
If its recommendations see implementation, these would presumably do away with regulations on minimum age requirements for sexual relations, and pave the way for pedophilia’s de-criminalization.
The ‘8 March Principles’, released on International Women’s Day, propose a human rights-based approach to laws criminalizing behavior related to sex, drug use, sexual and reproductive health, homelessness, and poverty.
“Criminal law is among the harshest of tools at the disposal of the State to exert control over individuals … as such, it ought to be a measure of last resort; however, globally, there has been a growing trend towards overcriminalization,” ICJ Law and Policy Director Ian Seiderman explains in a press release.
“We must acknowledge that these laws not only violate human rights, but the fundamental principles of criminal law themselves,” he added.
Excluding all other considerations, this focus on individual human ‘rights’ is brought to its logical conclusion in Principle 16 of the report.
Prepared by the Geneva-based ICJ, and with the assistance of UNAIDS (the UN body assigned to ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030) as well as the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Principle 16 states:
With respect to the enforcement of criminal law, any prescribed minimum age of consent to sex must be applied in a non-discriminatory manner. Enforcement may not be linked to the sex/gender of participants or age of consent to marriage. Moreover, 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.
Shrouded in vague terminology, the report goes on to state:
[P]ursuant to their evolving capacities and progressive autonomy, persons under 18 years of age should participate in decisions affecting them, with due regard to their age, maturity and best interests, and with specific attention to non-discrimination guarantees.
Importantly, the report makes no mention of parents’ rights, thereby appearing to imply that, in this area, their role in their child’s decision-making is non-existent. Moreover, it sets no age at which it is impossible for a child to consent to sex.
Along with other organizations and institutions, Amnesty International has voiced its support for all principles contained within the report.
