Since 2011, the age of consent in Gibraltar (British Overseas Territory) has been the same and neutral at 16. The Non-Gender-Based Crimes Act 2011 was passed by the Parliament of Gibraltar – pursuant to the 2011 decision of the Supreme Court of Gibraltar and repealing and updating Gibraltar`s 140-year-old criminal laws. [157] The age of consent was raised from 14 to 15 in 2007. [45] The age of consent in Estonia is 14 years, as stipulated in Article 145 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Estonia (sexual intercourse or other sexual acts with a child), which states: “An adult who has sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 14 shall be punished with imprisonment for up to 5 years.” [24] The Civil Code also addresses the age of consent at the prefectural level (and sometimes at the commune level within a prefecture). In Japan, a person must reach the age of 20 to be considered an adult, and parental consent plays an important role in legal issues affecting young people. For a long time, the age of consent in Romania was 14. The Criminal Code of 1864, which followed shortly after the unification of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia and was in force between 1865 and 1936, set the age of consent at 14. According to the Code, article 263 reads as follows: “Any offence against public decency, whether carried out or attempted, without violence, against a child under 14 years of age, whether male or female, shall be punishable by imprisonment for two to three years.” Article 264 defined “indecent assault by force,” the equivalent of the modern crime of rape (although the term “rape” was not used in this code), and stipulated that the maximum penalty should be imposed if the victim was under 15 years of age. [104] In 1936, a new penal code came into force. Article 421 stipulated: “Anyone who has sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 14 commits the offence of non-violent bodily harm to public decency and shall be punished by imprisonment for a term of one to three years.” However, if there were aggravating factors (such as pregnancy, a sexually transmitted disease or a disease committed by a person related to the victim or by several people), the penalty was aggravated. With regard to rape (art.
419), the victim under the age of 14 is an aggravating circumstance. [105] After the establishment of communist rule, the code was amended several times and a new penal code came into force in 1969. Nevertheless, the age of consent at 14 was maintained. Article 198 of the 1969 Code states: “Sexual intercourse with a female who has attained the age of 14 years. is punishable by imprisonment for one to five years. In one case of rape, similar to the previous code, the victim under the age of 14 was an aggravating circumstance (Article 197). [106] In 2002, under pressure from the EU,[15] Parliament finally repealed the various provisions and changed the age of consent for heterosexual and homosexual acts to 17 under the revised Penal Code. [16] However, the Civil Code states that minors do not need their parents` consent if they exercise personality rights that are “closely related” to them. Such cases must be assessed on a case-by-case basis and, in any event, the validity of the minor`s consent may depend on his or her capacity to judge.
In this sense, there could be instances where a minor`s transaction is deemed approved by a legal guardian/parent, to the extent that the minor has discretion over the ongoing transaction. The important point in assessing these cases is whether minors are capable of understanding the consequences of their consent. Until 1962, same-sex relations were illegal in Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak Criminal Code 140/1961, introduced that year, still criminalized “sexual intercourse with a person of the same sex” (art. 244), but covered only persons over the age of 18 who had had sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 18. Between adults, receiving or providing payment and public nuisance have been criminalized. In 1990, § 244 was completely repealed by Czechoslovak Act 175/2009 Sb of 01.07.2009. From 1977 to 1994, sexual acts between men of all ages were a criminal offence in Serbia, although the law was never enforced. Then, in 1994, the age of consent was only 18 for intercourse between men; Any man who performs sexual acts with another man is punished with up to 1 year in prison, 16 years for all other sexual behavior. Since 2006, an equal age of consent has entered into force, regardless of sexual orientation or gender – this is regulated by Article 110 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Serbia, which stipulates that “obscene acts” between an adult male and a man under the age of 16 are punishable by imprisonment for 1 to 8 years.
There is no specific reference to “lewd acts” between two women of the same crime. The interpretation of the law is situational and left to the discretion of the prosecutor`s office and the courts, on the basis of relevant factors that can be taken into account in deciding whether the minor has actually been “desecrated”. For example, in 2008, two brothers, aged 19 and 20, were found not guilty of desecrating a girl, then 16 (until 2018, the age of consent was 18). Their sexual encounters were consensual, and it was clear that the girl had had several previous sexual affairs with several teenagers. [78] [79] In 2007, a 30-year-old man was convicted of desecrating a then 14-year-old boy. He had arranged a situation in which the boy came to his apartment; Due to childish curiosity and what the court considered the cunning of the adult man, the boy remained in the apartment, even though the man first showered and then committed the obscene acts. [80] There are also other cases where the perpetrators were convicted even though the circumstances were unclear, such as the case of a 35-year-old hotel manager with a 14-year-old girl on vacation,[81] three men aged 18, 19 and 20 with three 14-year-old girls[82] or another 46-year-old hotel manager and a 14-year-old boy. who had meetings over a longer period of time. [83] The age of consent in Mexico is 17. However, each of Mexico`s 20 territories also has its own age of consent laws, with minimum consent ranging from 14 in Tlaxcala to 18 in many regions. Mexico does not have an exemption for consent to the completion of old age.
This means that two people under the age of 17 who voluntarily engage in sexual activity will both be prosecuted for rape. This also applies if one of the partners is 16 years old and the other is 17 years old. Northern Cyprus (territories of the Republic of Cyprus currently occupied by Turkey – see Turkish invasion of Cyprus) has an age of consent of 16 years, as stipulated in the Criminal Code (Ceza Yasası, arts. 153 and 154). In addition, it is illegal for an adult to engage in sexual acts with a minor under the age of 18 if the adult abuses the authority or influence he or she has over the minor in order to obtain sexual access.
