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CNN
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Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has signed into regulation a invoice that raises the minimal age of sexual consent from 12 to 16, his workplace mentioned on Monday, in a bid to guard minors from rape and sexual abuse.
Till now, the Philippines has had one of many world’s lowest minimal ages of sexual consent, behind Nigeria’s age of 11, in keeping with the United Nations Youngsters’s Fund (UNICEF).
A joint 2015 research by UNICEF and the Heart for Girls’s Sources, an area non-governmental group, confirmed seven of 10 rape victims within the Philippines had been youngsters.
One in 5 respondents age 13 to 17 reported experiencing sexual violence, whereas one in 25 skilled pressured consummated intercourse throughout childhood, the research mentioned.
Underneath the invoice endorsed by Duterte, which is gender impartial, any grownup partaking in sexual contact with anybody 16 or below can be committing statutory rape, except the age distinction between them was three years or much less and intercourse was confirmed to be consensual, and neither abusive nor exploitative.
The exemption doesn’t apply if the a type of concerned was below 13.
“We welcome this authorized improvement and hope that it’ll assist shield younger women from rape and sexual abuse,” mentioned Josalee Deinla, spokesperson of the Nationwide Union of Peoples’ Attorneys, which supplies authorized assist to poor and marginalised folks within the Philippines.
Lawrence Fortun, one of many invoice’s major sponsors, described it as “a significant step ahead”.
“I’m elated that our collective efforts at pushing for stronger safety in opposition to rape and different types of sexual abuse are advancing,” he mentioned in an announcement.
Activists within the Philippines have been pushing to boost the age of consent because the Nineteen Eighties. The previous regulation protected predators, critics say, as a result of they’ll declare victims consented – and kids as younger as 12 can typically be coerced or threatened into silence.
Victims’ advocates additionally argue the low age of consent contributed to what worldwide rights organizations have described as excessive ranges of intercourse trafficking and teenage being pregnant within the Philippines, compounded by gaps within the enforcement of current legal guidelines.
However till Monday the regulation hadn’t been modified for 91 years. Elements included a scarcity of training and understanding amongst lawmakers and most people of ideas like youngsters’s cognitive improvement and the flexibility to present knowledgeable consent, mentioned Patrizia Benvenuti, little one safety chief at UNICEF Philippines, in 2021.
In an announcement on Monday, UNICEF praised the “legislative milestone,” calling it “an important step in direction of fulfilling youngsters’s rights to safety from sexual violence, abuse and exploitation.”
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