The Philippine authorities will consider a bill to raise the age of sexual consent to 16 years: according to existing legislation, it is allowed to have sex by consent with 12-year-old children. The Daily Mail reports.
The Philippine Congress will be discussing this proposal shortly. Experts UNICEF call the possibility of its adoption “a victory for all Filipino children.”
It is noted that cases of sexual violence, including on the Internet, are extremely frequent in the country, and more than 500 teenage pregnancies and childbirths are recorded every day. The age of consent at 12 years old, one of the lowest in the world, has been enshrined in the country’s legislation since 1930, while divorce and abortion in the Philippines is illegal.
In April of this year, after a scandal involving the vice president of an oil company and his young mistress about raising the age of sexual consent started talking in China. He is now 14 years old in China.