THE EDITOR, Sir:
YOUR FRONT page story headlined "Protect Our Girls" in your January 2, 2004 publication led me to immediately ask the question, "Who will speak for our boys" bearing in mind that the discussion in the article was based on rights of children generally and not any single gender. I agree wholeheartedly that not enough is done either legislatively or socially to protect our children. I however do not believe a boy under 16 or under 17 should be automatically convicted of a crime where sex takes place with the full consent and sometimes initiation of the girl.
The protection of our children ought to be across gender. The law ought to provide for gender equality. In at least one state in the United States of America if the young involved in the voluntary sexual act are both children and are no more than two years apart in age the boy is not adjudged to commit any crime unless there was in fact rape.
Young girls, no matter how forward or ripe or enchanting, should be protected from older men and hence society is justified in setting up a formal cut off point even when the moral "fault" is not one-sided. Hence I agree with raising the age of consent in relation to sex between a young girl and much older man who after all should know better.
Promiscuity is a societal phenomena and not a gender one. With the increased emancipation of women which extends to our young girls (study the relations between boys and girls in any co-education school) it is unfair to continue to criminalise and to only punish the boys when both children are equally at fault, when both children's morals and hormones and lack of adequate supervision are equally to be blamed.
I am, etc.,
JACQUELINE SAMUELS-BROWN
Chambers
66-68 Barry Street
Kingston
