South African high court legalises s*x for children as young as 12

South Africa’s highest court has made it legal for children as young as 12 to have sex. The ruling means teenagers between the ages of 12 and 16 need no longer fear legal consequences if they engage in sexual activity. But only with each other and not with an adult.

The Constitutional Court said, in effect, that children of that age were having sex anyway. It declared sections 15 and 16 of the Sexual Offences Act, which criminalised kissing, petting and penetration between young teenagers, to be unconstitutional.

The court ordered the Department of Justice to remove all the criminal records of those minors who had already been found guilty of sexual crimes.

The decision caused outrage in some quarters, with critics saying it further eroded the country’s moral base and added to the headaches of parents trying to teach their children to behave responsibly.

The Reverend Kenneth Meshoe, leader of the African Christian Democratic Party, told Daily Sun: “Our government started the whole thing by teaching sex at schools.

“This is an assault on morality,” he said.

The government had already stripped parents of the authority to punish their children when they did wrong.