In 1860, the age of consent for women was 10 years.
New Delhi:
Even as the Law Commission advised the government not to tinker with the age of consent of 18, this age in India has varied widely over time, from 10 years in 1860 to 16 years for women until 2012.
Majority is the age at which a person is considered legally capable of consenting to marriage or sexual intercourse.
This age is stipulated by law and currently the age of consent for sexual intercourse is 18 years based on the POCSO Act.
However, before the POCSO Act in 2012, there was no age of consent separately defined for males and it was determined under Section 375 of the IPC, which defines “rape”. Until 2012, the age of consent for women was 16.
Because rape is defined as a crime that can only be committed against a woman, the age of consent for sexual intercourse was defined only for a woman, where the age of consent is immaterial and any sexual activity amounts to statutory rape.
On the other hand, there was no age of consent for men. In fact, the term ‘child’ itself was not defined in the IPC or in the General Clauses Act, 1897.
Further, the age of consent defined for a woman under Section 375 of the IPC which defines “rape” has had a checkered history, with the age being fixed at 10 years in 1860 to 18 years as it stands today.
In the report submitted to the Justice Department, the legal panel provided a brief history of the age of consent in the country over the years.
In 1860, the age of consent for women was 10 years old, the report said.
Thereafter, in 1891, the age of consent for a woman under Section 375 was increased to 12 years in the wake of the public outcry caused by the Phulmoni case.
Phulmoni was an 11-year-old girl who died of hemorrhage due to a vaginal rupture caused by her husband who forced her to have sex. The husband was found guilty of causing serious harm only by a rash or negligent act endangering life and was sentenced to one year in prison.
Then the age of consent was raised to 14 years in 1925 and to 16 years in 1940.
Until 2012, when the POCSO Act came into effect, the age of consent for women remained 16 years and there was still no age of consent defined for men.
However, the minimum age for marriage was 18 years for women and 21 years for men.
The marital rape exception in Section 375 has also undergone changes over the years, starting from 10 years in 1860 to 15 years in 2012.
The figure for different countries
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as any person under the age of 18. However, the age of consent varies worldwide from 13 to 18 years. The age of consent in Canada was only raised from 14 to 16 in 2008 in light of increased incidents of teenagers being lured online.
In the US, the age of consent varies by state. According to federal law, the age of consent in the US is 18.
In many states, there is a minimum age requirement in addition to the age of consent, and the criminality of sexual intercourse with a person above the minimum age requirement and below the age of consent depends on the age difference between the two parties and/or the age of the suspect.
The age of consent in Australia varies between 16 and 17 depending on the state or territory. The age of consent in Japan until 2023 was 13 years, while the age of consent is 20 years and the minimum age for marriage for a man is 18 years and 16 years for a woman.
In South Africa, the age of consent is 16, even though a child is defined as a person under the age of 18.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
