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Remember the Abstinence-Only "suggestion" about making sex an adult-only activity? Australia seems to have latched onto this idea, and taken it even further than America's conservatives were even willing to go. Via The Curvature I found this very upsetting news coming out of Australia's Northern Territory:
"This applies to everybody," Dr Bauert said. "Parents, brothers and sisters, mates."
This means that any sex occurring in the Northern territory of Australia, even consenting sex between two teens of the same age must be reported and considered statutory rape.
Imagine: a place where doctors cannot give accurate, helpful information to sexually active teens because, if they are under sixteen, they will not be too afraid to tell their doctors they're considering sex, ditto on parents and even friends?
Okay, so, we know there is a fine involved with not reporting, but what happens to teenagers who are reported and caught 'having underaged sex?
I'm not saying all sixteen year olds, fifteen year olds, fourteen year olds and so on are ready to have sex; decisions like that really should be made on a case-by-case basis and, of course, ideally teenagers would wait until they were mature enough to handle all of the issues that go along with sex before having it.... but this is just crazy. Teenagers could be thrown in jail until they turned thirty-two all because they had consensual sex at sixteen, with another sixteen year old."Any person who has sexual intercourse with someone under the age of 16 is guilty of a crime and liable to imprisonment for 16 years," Dr Bauert said.
If that's not ridiculous enough in itself, Cara over at The Curvature points out another awful side-effect of this new law: the disrespect it shows to acutal rape victims, who rarely see their rapists convicted and thrown into jail because, while sexual contact can sometimes be proven through DNA, the forced aspect of rape is, unfortunately, hard to prove in a court of law. Proving thet two people who had sex are under sixteen, however, thats as easy as looking at a birth certificate.
In addition, Cara carries on an amazing discussion about the racial aspect of this law, which you should go read right now because she expresses this facet better than I ever could:
The Northern Territory's new laws exist for a seemingly noble cause: to reduce child abuse on the tail of an awful case regarding the abuse of eight indigenous girls between the ages of thirteen to fifteen... but this is not the way to do that.The Australian government has a history of enacting horrific measures against Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory in the name of supposedly “cracking down on child sexual abuse.” [...] This newest law seems to apply to all residents of the Northern Territory, but looking at the history there, it doesn’t take a huge leap of logic to figure out that this law “combating child sexual abuse” is actually aimed at the Aboriginal population. It’s pretty obvious which teens in particular they think are abusive by the very nature of having sexual urges.
This new law takes the focus off the child abusers and on to teenagers who are having (hopefully safe) consensual sex - moreover it criminalizes the parents, friends, and doctors of these teens who should be free to give them the information they need to protect themselves, in a consensual relationship.
Just as it is important for us to call US lawmakers and organizations out on their attempts to police people's bodies, it is important for us to be aware of what is happening abroad - lets hope this law doesn't last long.
