Philippines raises age of sexual consent from 12 to 16

THE Philippines has increased its legal age of sexual consent from 12 to 16 years after a campaign by children’s rights activists that has lasted for decades.

The largely Catholic nation had one of the world’s lowest ages of consent, allowing adults to have sex with children as young as 12 if they agreed.

Under the revised law, signed by President Rodrigo Duterte, sex with a person under 16 will be illegal and carry a maximum penalty of 40 years in jail.

Exceptions will be made for teenage couples so long as their age difference does not exceed three years and the sex is consensual.

Margarita Ardivilla, a child protection specialist in the Philippines for Unicef, the UN children’s fund, said: “It is very important to have a clear age to determine statutory rape and the below 12 of a 1930 law was unjustifiable.”

Stubborn social norms in the deeply religious country, where abortion and divorce are still illegal, had frustrated campaigners’ efforts until both houses of congress ratified the bill in December.

The poverty-afflicted Philippines has become a global hotspot for online sexual abuse and official data show around 500 girls aged 10-19 give birth every day there. Unicef cited a governmentbacked national study in 2015 that showed one in five children aged 13-17 had experienced sexual violence while one in 25 were raped during childhood.

The law “sends a very strong message that child rape is a heinous crime and must be punished accordingly”, said Rowena Legaspi, executive director of the Children’s Legal Rights and Development Center.

The legal reform offers the same protection to boys and girls and also requires education to include “age appropriate” lessons on children’s rights in the school curriculum.