Age of Consent and a point of few

 This is an answer to Democrats and their current "Woke Culture".

Unfortunately, current Labour Party in UK i no different!

People ask me why I left UK and New Zealand and this is part of the answer apart from racial discrimination especially Asians. 

Real reason was Mrs.Thatcher legalizing homosexuality and I was trained to investigate paedophiliacs and and at that time there were over 35 paedophilics in British Parliament.

My last case was a Police officer abusing his own child, a girl of two years. 

My consultant who was an Indian did not come to see the kid and got into hot water .

I immediately left UK.

I went to New Zealand and it was much worse there and the Irish descendants  suffer from a major inferiority complex.

Age of Consent and a point of few

The contextual issues surrounding the age of consent cannot be defined by legal limitations alone. The fact that it needs legal definition is an indication of its importance in civil society especially in a multicultural society. With the advancement of knowledge base of the modern age, the trend should be for it to go up instead of go down. In a country like Sri-Lanka where the social fabric is fast deteriorating and with distinct lack of moral courage the legal implications are measured by the impact of economy when foreign paedophiles are not available to revive the ailing economy. The lowering of the age of consent is someway related to the capture of the British paedophile and the court case that would ensure. Any discussion of this issue should take into current and future implications. To name a few, comprehensive discussion should include physiological, psychological, cultural, national and moral issues. The haste that surrounds the up surge of this issue needs careful attention separately. That is also not my intentions. Various levels of discussions should be done by the experts in respective fields. I would not discuss the legal ramifications instead I would highlight medical as well as moral issues. I would state briefly, physiological and psychological aspects before winding up with Buddhist ethics. I firmly believe this would encourage other writers with similar interests.

Historical

In the prehistoric time the man lived up to 35 years and a woman up to 45 years (current age of female menopause). The man’s early demise was related to genetic as well as to physical (hunters with primitive tools sustained injuries more often than not) injuries. Poor nutrition (strictly speaking an ill understood biological clock) seems to induce menarche early and better nutrition seems to delay onset of menarche beyond 13 years. In prehistoric times with maternal mortality being high early maturity and early marriage had pivotal role in keeping the balance of nature.

Physiological

The age of consent at 13 is physiologically unsound. The average onset of menarche in our well nourished girls is about 13 years and it has some relationship to the height achieved by them. From the age of 13 the puberty spread over another 5 years and they attain maturity at around 18 years. Male puberty lags behind by 2 to 3 years. I am one who even discourages physical sports for children below 16 years of age. I have seen severe sport injuries to children under this age and myjudgement are based on my personal experience. As for sex, in this growing period especially pregnancy has serious consequences both to the mother and baby.

Psychological

The psychological development lags behind 3 to 5 years of physical maturity especially due to cultural impacts and consent below 16 years (preferably18 years) is unsound. According to Piaget’s stages of conceptual development the concrete operations develops between 7 to 11 years and formal operations develops between 11 to 15 years. If one is to apply hisgeneralisations the minimum age of consent should be 15 years and not 13 years.  Abstract thinking and hypothetical analysis develop between 11 to 15 years period and assuming that all children can make logical decisions as regard to sexual (psychology of sex as opposed to physical sex) activities are fraught with many fallacies.

Medical

What we know definitely is that the early sex and multiple partners are sure recipe for cancer (at an early age) of the female genital tract. This is also the age they contract all socially contractible diseases including AIDS. The psychological makeup and their ramifications have lasting impact on the future adult.

Legal

Legal implications are only a reflection how seriously we consider all aspects of a problem and legal procedures do not cure the problem but a cosmetic application to please the mediocre.

Moral

In an ideal society the majority of Buddhists would be monks and sex is something that need not be discussed since they practice total abstinence. For the layman there is no morality beyond five simple precepts which is the foundation of civil society. It does not matter what age one starts sexual activities as long as there are no paedophiles and no extramarital sex.

Common Sense

What our politicians including monks in the parliament are lacking is common sense. My biggest concern is why I have got to waste my time writing this when there are over 20 education ministers in this country and a President who is the Minister of Education? Most of these children from 13-16 years should be in schools doing some intellectual exercises instead of sexual orgies. I am one who encourages school going age up to 22 years and use   this period for character development and work skills. Instead making the young adults subservient to political groups they should be made independent individuals of productivity. That is only a wishful thinking.

Postscript

When I was in England one of the basictraining I had was on Child Abuse Investigation. We used to have case conferences on each case of child abuse,  an exercise that I did not enjoy any way. One of the last cases, I detected was a child of two and a half years. I got an emergency call at half past one in the morning. Rushed to the casualty and found a distressed child without any clinical findings to account for her distress. My gut feeling was that they (parents) pulled me out of my bed thinking that I would be very cursory in my examination and would miss the tell tale story of child abuse. I told the sister that I would do a detail examination having taken all the precaution to calm the child. I found three pieces of hair in her perineum and sent them for forensic examination. Parent's explanation was that the hairs were probably dog's.

I would not go further because of the legal implications.

I of course left England never to take up a job in paediactrics (my children were small and I wanted them to grow in a normal environment) until my children were big enough. Last time I got involved in a similar case was in another western country where a mother poisoned the child (killed). That women went to prison.

I used to question myself why we have to do this? All this could be prevented by good parenting and education. Sadly it is lacking in the West as well an in the East. Sri-Lanka had been a heaven for notorious paedophiliacs. The role of LTTE in this racket needs close scrutiny. Child soldiers and paedophiliacs probably have some common links.

20th September, 2005