Dear Editor,

The year ended on a bit of a wild note. While churches, companies, and non-governmental organisations were focused on treating children in the west for Christmas, Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) had a more R-rated treat in mind: the normalisation of sexual activity for children.

In an unexpected legal twist regarding the diversion policy, meant to get sexually active and criminally involved children the holistic help they need, the JFJ instead, in effect, in my opinion, advocated for children close in age who are having sex to be labelled little ‘Romeos’ and little ‘Juliets’ and sent on their merry active ways.

This flies in the face of the long-held legal position that children should not be treated as though they can consent to sexual activity — because they can’t. A 13-year-old cannot consent to a medical procedure, cannot vote, cannot marry, and cannot drink alcohol for the very fact that it is understood that there are certain decisions that have far-reaching consequences that children are unable to fully grasp.

Consent is the voluntary, informed, and uncoerced agreement to engage in a particular act. Children cannot provide valid consent because they lack the cognitive, emotional, and social maturity to fully understand the risks and consequences of many decisions, including sexual activity. Their underdeveloped ability to perceive danger, weigh risk, and judge short- and long-term outcomes, especially in the context of a hypersexualised culture, widespread broken family scenarios, and youthful impulsivity mean children, in the Jamaican context especially, need protection from themselves.

Hear the Children’s Cry rightfully decried JFJ’s advocated position as “baffling and disheartening” because it seeks to bestow on children, overtaken by hormonal impulses, legal avenues for self-exploitation, while removing them from the benefits of the expertise and accountability of the diversion policy framework, which currently seeks to avert criminal proceedings and engage counselling and community-based approaches with the backing of the law.

To remove children from this system is to deny them the very protection their behaviour indicates they need. Legal oversight is not punishment in this context, it is a framework for safeguarding well-being, teaching responsibility, and preventing harm.

Removing legal protections and bypassing structured interventions exposes children to emotional harm, early pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and the long-term consequences of sexual activity outside of the correct context. By maintaining laws and structured interventions we not only protect children individually but also reinforce a societal message that adolescents having sex is not okay. We have already made the situation somewhat confusing by lowering the age of consent to 16; we dare not make it worse.

Weakening legal safeguards under the label of rights-based reform or decluttering the diversion policy that serves this vulnerable population of sexually active children puts too many children at risk. True protection requires vigilance, guidance, and the firm application of the law. Let us use our energy to strengthen the diversion programme so that it can meet the demand that exists, and not remove its reach from those who need it — these vulnerable children.

Dr Daniel Thomas

President

Love March Movement