UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Dino Nocivelli
Thursday 24 August 2017
What has consent got to do with child abuse? A simple question, which should have a simple answer. A child under the age of 16 is in law unable to consent to sexual acts. The age of consent exists for a reason: to protect vulnerable members of society who have not yet developed the emotional or physical maturity to engage in sexual relationships.
Yet years of revelations about child sexual abuse have shown that this is not a settled question even within trusted institutions that should know better. The independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham found police officers believed girls as young as 11 could consent to sex. In Rochdale, council employees said they thought victims of child sex abuse were “making their own choices”. And in my own work as a lawyer representing survivors of child sexual abuse, I’ve seen how the Catholic church, when dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse, often looks to place blame straight at the feet of a victim.
Two years ago, the Catholic church was swift to publicly condemn Father Gino Flaim, a priest in northern Italy, who in the context of discussing paedophilia said some children seek attention from priests that they do not receive at home, and some priests give in to this.
But I have received court documents and legal correspondence from the Catholic church’s lawyers that seem to support the idea children can consent to sex. This includes allegations of consent in child abuse cases (where my teenage client had been raped by his family priest, who was in his 60s), a priest who alleged one of my clients was a “child prostitute”, and a priest who felt sexual relations with children caused them no harm.
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