Let our teens be

A shoutout to Nepal’s law minister. Her first decision, on assuming office on April 26, was to review their rape law that criminalises teen sexual relations. Her task force’s recommendation: include a close-in-age exemption, as is done across liberal societies. This, hopefully, will soon be legislated. There is little as harmful to growing minds and bodies as criminalising teen sexuality, exploration and sexual relations. Nepal’s age of consent, as in India, is 18. In India, a close-in-age exemption was, unjustifiably, not included when Pocso was legislated, despite repeated cautions – from policy wonks, legal experts, health & behavioural specialists and so on. Upshot: India too sends teens in consensual sexual relations – if discovered by ever-disapproving adults – to jail. The girl has no legal say, at all. And her close-in-age friend is pushed into the criminal justice system, his future in tatters. Fallout is traumatic, ruinous, and inflicts lifelong damage. One analysis found that 80% of “romantic” cases under Pocso “were filed by parents or relatives after a girl eloped or became pregnant.”

India’s SC and several HCs – Allahabad, Madras, Delhi – have repeatedly observed, while hearing cases of criminalised teen sex, that Pocso has resulted in victimising the very kids law aims to protect. Of course, there’s always the upholder of toxic patriarchy, like the Calcutta HC judge who found it his remit to suggest “teen girls should control their urges”. A tongue-lashing from SC doesn’t take away the fact that patriarchal attitudes – in courts, policy corridors and Parliament – are anything but rare, ever taking new shape and form. India’s messy reality, additionally, is that while Pocso criminalises sex below age 18, sex with an underage wife is perfectly legal. Child marriage is illegal, but underage sex law doesn’t apply. The law is confused, because lawmakers are confused. Because society, and tragically, the law, views growing teens not as individuals with autonomy, but in terms of parents’ ownership & control, investment & returns (disguised as child’s ‘future’), and as keepers of family ‘honour’.

India must follow Nepal’s example – renew the move to incorporate age-gap leniencies in law. Free India’s teenagers from every passing elder who magically transforms into an advisory body. Let’s let teenagers be.

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