Age of consent: challenges and contradictions of sexual violence laws in India
Open Access
- 22 February 2021
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters
- Vol. 29 (2), 1-19
- https://doi.org/10.1080/26410397.2021.1878656
Abstract
India enacted a new child sexual abuse law in 2012 and made important changes to the rape law in 2013 to expand the definition of rape and sexual assault, introduce several reforms and improve gender sensitivity in rape trials. However, the child sexual abuse law with its definition of who is a child has increased the age of consent for sex from 16 years to 18 years, echoed by similar changes in the rape law. This paper revisits the debates on the age of consent in India in the late nineteenth century. It reviews them in the light of the new legislative changes, adjudication of cases of sexual assault, and examines the implications of the new laws on adolescents and their sexuality. We contend that the changes in the law have resulted in several challenges: for adolescents exploring their sexuality on the one hand, and for courts to adjudicate on love, romance, and elopement, on the other. Further, in conjunction with raising the age of consent, other changes such as mandatory reporting of sexual activity among adolescents, especially by hospitals, have increased family control on adolescents’ sexuality and strengthened regressive social norms linked to marriages. One of the most troubling developments is the resulting barriers to adolescents’ access to reproductive and sexual health care. This paper explores how laws devised to address harm and extend protection to children play into dominant social norms and are in the service of protectionist and patriarchal control on young people and their sexuality.Keywords
This publication has 17 references indexed in Scilit:
- Adolescent health programming in India: a rapid reviewReproductive Health, 2020
- Unpacking the 2-year age-gap provision in relation to the decriminalisation of underage consensual sex in South AfricaSouth African Journal of Bioethics and Law, 2018
- Five years post Nirbhaya: Critical insights into the status of response to sexual assaultIndian Journal of Medical Ethics, 2018
- The Decline of Arranged Marriage? Marital Change and Continuity in IndiaPopulation and Development Review, 2016
- The Rule of Colonial Indifference: Rape on Trial in Early Colonial India, 1805–57Journal of Asian Studies, 2010
- The Age of Innocence: A Cautious Defense of Raising the Age of Consent in Canadian Sexual Assault LawNew Criminal Law Review, 2010
- Marry for What: Caste and Mate Selection in Modern IndiaPublished by National Bureau of Economic Research ,2009
- Religion, Caste, and Communalism in PunjabSociological Bulletin, 2002
- Feminist Legal Analysis and Sexual Autonomy: Using Statutory Rape Laws as an IllustrationHarvard Law Review, 1999
- The Origin and Enactment of the Indian Age of Consent Bill, 1891Journal of Asian Studies, 1962