Care Advisor, Strategy and Feminist Futures, Oxfam International; Founding Trustee, Vidhayak Trust INDIA.
General Secretary, Forum for Medical Ethics Society; Founding Trustee, Vidhayak Trust, INDIA.
Indian J Med Ethics. 2024 Jan-Mar;IX(1):3-6. doi: 10.20529/IJME.2024.001.
The 22nd Law Commission of India (henceforth, the Commission) [1], in its recent 283rd report, offered its recommendation on the question of age of consent (AoC) to sexual activity. Two High Courts which have seen several cases of non-exploitative consensual sex involving adolescent girls, filed by the police under "sexual assault", had referred this issue to the Commission. The substantive matter before the Commission was whether to lower the AoC to prevent unnecessary prosecutions and resolve the contradictions in sexual violence laws. In this regard, we find the report rather disappointing. It is a lost opportunity to decriminalise adolescent sexuality, to restore the autonomy of adolescent girls over their bodies, uphold their sexual and reproductive rights, and respect their evolving capacity to exercise their sexuality. The Commission has also let go of a chance to undo a highly protectionist clause in the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), 2012 [2] which renders all sexual activity of individuals under the age of 18 an offence. It failed to reiterate the progressive recommendations made by the Justice Verma Committee Report in 2013 [3] in this regard, which had come after extensive deliberations and were widely welcomed by stakeholders.
印度第 22 届法律委员会（以下简称委员会）[1] 在其最近的第 283 次报告中，就同意年龄（AoC）的问题提出了建议。有两个高等法院收到了几起警方根据“性侵犯”提起的非剥削性同意的青少年女孩的性行为案件，将此问题提交给了委员会。摆在委员会面前的实质性问题是，是否降低 AoC 以防止不必要的起诉并解决性暴力法律中的矛盾。在这方面，我们发现该报告相当令人失望。委员会错过了使青少年性行为合法化的机会，使青少年女孩对自己的身体拥有自主权，维护了他们的性和生殖权利，并尊重他们不断发展的行使性行为的能力。委员会也错过了取消 2012 年《保护儿童免受性侵犯法》（POCSO）[2] 中高度保护主义条款的机会，该条款将所有 18 岁以下个人的所有性活动定为犯罪。委员会未能重申 2013 年维玛法官委员会报告[3] 中在这方面提出的渐进性建议，这些建议是在广泛审议后提出的，得到了利益相关者的广泛欢迎。
