Trends of age of consent legislation in Europe

Abstract

Over the past few decades, many national jurisdictions on the European continent have revised their age of consent legislation. A comparison of the age of consent laws of 59 jurisdictions in 2004 and 2016 revealed three important developments to have taken place during the past 12 years. The first trend – to raise the general age of consent and abolish very low ages of consent (<14 years) – signals that nowadays much greater emphasis is placed on the protection of children against negative and premature sexual experiences. This protectionist approach, however, comes at a cost: A higher statutory age of consent can restrain children in their sexual autonomy. The second trend emerging from the comparison was the full and complete equalization of the age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual relations. While in 2004, one-third of the studied jurisdictions still had discriminatory provisions for homo- or heterosexual sex, all of them have now adopted laws that are neutral regarding the sexual orientation of the partners involved. The third trend is to create a higher age limit for sexual behaviours in relationships of authority or dependence. This acknowledgement of the need for increased protection of minors in relationships characterized by a power imbalance deserves following by jurisdictions that have not distinguished a different age of consent for authority relations (yet).

European legislators’ attitudes toward childhood sexuality from the perspective of age of consent legislation

“…Nowadays, children-particularly adolescents-generally reach sexual maturity in the physiological sense long before their sexual activity becomes socially and legally acceptable (Gittins, 1998). The fact that many teenagers in Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions, like the UK, the US, and Australia, start their engagement in sexuality earlier than permitted by law demonstrates the inconsistency between legislation and the experiences of children (Zhu and Van der Aa, 2017a). In the UK, for instance, a national survey (excluding Northern Ireland) found that nearly 33% of men and 25% of women had intercourse before they were 16, despite the legal age of consent being set at 16 (Moore and Reynolds, 2017).…”

“…The new invention of age of consent in the recent 200-300 years also supports Fishman's (1982) finding that it was in the 19th century that the control of childhood sexuality became institutionalized. Now all contemporary European jurisdictions have age of consent legislation, but the detailed content of these laws varies enormously across the different jurisdictions (Zhu and Van der Aa, 2017a). And even within the same jurisdiction, the age of consent legislation differs in various historical periods, because the age of consent legislation in a particular time is significantly influenced by the construction of sexuality, the construction of childhood, and the intersection of the two in that period.…”

“…Which discourse around childhood sexuality introduced in the previous section do they choose to ground their legislation? Recent research undertaken by the author (Zhu and Van der Aa, 2017a) in exploring the trends of age of consent legislation in Europe could provide important clues that can help answer these questions.…”

“…In 1997, Graupner (2000) conducted a comparative study on age of consent legislation in Europe and updated it in 2004. In 2016, to provide an overview of the latest age of consent legislation in Europe, Zhu and Van der Aa (2017a) recollected the data of age of consent legislation in 57 of the original 59 jurisdictions. Although data from Zhu and Van der Aa's research were mainly based on codified legislation, and leaves out other relevant sources such as case law or policy documents, it provides a good basis for a comparison with data from Graupner's research to find legislative trends.…”

A comparison of the gender-specificity of age of consent legislation in Europe and China: Towards a gender-neutral age of consent in China?

“…Nowadays, all jurisdictions on the European continent have their own age of consent provisions (Zhu and Van der Aa 2017) and they are usually embodied in national Criminal Codes or dedicated sexual offenses Acts. A comparison of the age of consent laws in all jurisdictions on the European continent revealed that, although detailed legislation varied significantly from one jurisdiction to another, a large majority of jurisdictions share one common characteristic: They have adopted a gender-neutral approach when setting the age limit for young people, without indicting the gender or sexual orientation of the sexual participants, which means that both male and female children, either in heterosexual or homosexual relations, enjoy protection to the same extent.…”