#Age of consent in mexico free

Although the ICJ’s mission calls for upholding the rule of law, this report instead outlines strategies to upend the rule of law and dismantle whole sectors of the criminal justice system. The ICJ is a group of sixty judges and attorneys from around the world who seek to influence legislative reform and impact judicial decision-making. Specifically, multiple areas of the report reference adolescents’ “evolving capacity to consent,” state that adolescents can consent to sexual conduct “in fact, if not in law,” and assert that enforcement of criminal law should not apply when these sexual acts are “consensual.” In each of these sections, the report does not reference any limitations on the age of the other person engaging in this “consensual” act. However, other human rights organizations have pointed out that the plain language of the report suggests otherwise. The ICJ published a clarification asserting the report does not call for this. “Consensual sexual conduct…may not be criminalized in any circumstances… Moreover, sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law.” What’s the Controversy?Īfter publication of this report, several media stories declared that it was “ misinformation” to characterize that the report included sexual activities between adults and minors. Most notably, the report also calls to reexamine laws relating to consensual sexual conduct involving children under the age of majority and people with disabilities who ordinarily cannot “consent.” The aim of this article is to make an interpretation of criminal law under the concept of guarantism, to argue based on the best interest of the minor, the State obligation of legislating to set in a homogenous way in the criminal codes of the country, the minimum age of consent at 15 years old.Ĭhildren’s human rights sexual health sexual violence criminal law age of consent.Recently, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) published a report advocating for significant revisions to criminal law, such as decriminalizing prostitution intentional transmission of HIV and purchasing and possessing drugs for personal use.

It is claimed that the age of 12 is too low to make teenagers legally responsible for the free exercise of their sexuality due to the serious effects it can cause on their dignity and sexual health.

27% of criminal codes of federal entities set the age of consent at 12 years old. The Mexican criminal law system sanctions under the crime of statutory rape adult offenders who have sexual relations with minors below the age of consent in order to protect their legal right to a healthy psychosexual development. Children’s human right to sexual health: age of consent.

#Age of consent in mexico free