Japan has the lowest consent age among developed nations: Why it’s mulling a change after more than 100 years (2024)

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What should be the minimum age of giving valid consent for entering into a sexual relationship? That’s the question that Japan is thinking about.

A Japanese justice ministry panel has put forth a proposal to raise the country’s age of consent to 16 — it currently is among the world’s lowest at 13, as part of an overhaul of sex crime legislation. The government may pass the revision in the consent age during Parliament session which will run through June.

Besides raising the age of consent, the panel has also proposed criminalising the grooming of minors. It also plans to expand the definition of rape to include acts committed using drugging and intoxication.

The move has been welcomed by activists and survivors of sexual abuse, but added that it “still fails to meet international rape legislation standards”.

Let’s take a closer look at Japan’s consent age and how it stacks up with other countries.

Age of consent in Japan

Japan’s legal age to indulge in consensual sex is currently 13 years. It has been 13 years since 1907 when the Penal Code of Japan set the age limit. At that time, the average life expectancy of women was 44 years, and it was common for women to marry and have children at a young age. In society at that time, 13 was regarded as a reasonable age of consent. In addition, the legal marriageable age was 15 back then. Therefore, the age of 13, which is two years younger than 15, was considered sensible.

In the over 100 years since then, the age hasn’t changed and is today one of the world’s lowest ages.

However, the laws around sex and rape in Japan are a bit ambiguous; under the Juvenile Obscene Acts, passed in 1947, no one over the age of 14 can have sex with 13–14 year-olds. The minimum sentence for sex with any female under the age of 13 is five years. But, 13 and 14-year olds are permitted to give consent to each other.

Proposed changes to the law

The proposal to change to Japan’s consent age comes after repeated calls on the same issue. In November 2020, a group called ‘Your Voice Matters’ had launched an online petition. The petition had read: “Imagine when you were 13 years old. What if your child was 13 years old? Think of your 13-year-old brother or sister. Can the 13-year-old show a Yes or No intention for sexual activity?”

Now, the ministry wants to overhaul the laws in Japan. The changes include declaring sexual intercourse with a person of the age 13 as illegal regardless of consent. Moreover, intercourse with a person between 13 and 15 will be punished if the perpetrator is five or more years older.

The draft also wants to broaden the definition of what constitutes a sex crime. Currently, the law requires violence or intimidation on the part of the offender, as well as for the situation being physically and/or psychologically difficult for the victim to resist, but the proposed revisions would add other conditions such as forced alcoholic intoxication as sufficient for the perpetrator’s actions to be considered sexual assault.

Justice Ministry official Yusuke Asanuma said that this “isn’t meant to make it easier or harder” for victims to win a rape case but that it should make verdicts “more consistent”.

Also read: What are Tokyo’s same-sex partnership certificates? How will they benefit couples?

The proposed changes in the laws comes at a significant time for Japan. In 2019, there was outcry in the country after several rape acquittals, including a case in which a man repeatedly raped his teenage daughter. According to a report in The Guardian, a branch of the Nagoya district court acquitted the father, saying there was no definitive proof that the daughter had been unable to resist, even though it recognised that she had not consented. A higher court later overturned the decision and sentenced the man to 10 years in prison.

Moreover, the number of sex offences in Japan hasspiked sharply, with cases of forced intercourse climbing 19.3 per cent to 1,656 in 2022, according to government data. The number of sexual assault cases, involving violence or threats also rose 9.9 per cent to 4,708 cases.

Consent age across the world

As of date, Japan’s age of consent is the lowest among the G7 industrialised nations. In Germany and Italy the age is 14, in Greece and France it is 15 and in the United Kingdom and many American states it is 16.

Across the world, Nigeria has the lowest age of consent in the world at 11 years, followed by Angola at 12 years. Earlier, the Philippines’ consent age was 12, but after many protests and outcry, then President Rodrigo Duterte had increased the minimum age to 16 in 2022.

Bahrain and Portugal’s legal age of consent are the highest in the world at 21 followed by Niue, an Oceanian country at 19 years.

In Europe, the minimum age to have intercourse varies. While some countries such as UK and Russia have set the age at 16, in other countries such as Malta it is as high as 18. Initially, Spain had the lowest age of consent in Europe, but raised it from 13 to 16 in 2013.

In India, the age of consent was 16 from 1940 until 2012, when the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act raised the age of consent to 18 years.

Also read: Maharashtra man marries twins. What do Hindu and Muslim marriage laws say?

As per the United Nations, the minimum age of sexual consent is the age from which someone is deemed capable of consenting to sexual activity. The aim of setting a consent age is to protect adolescents from sexual abuse and from the consequences of early sexual activity on their rights and development.

According to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, 13 years of age is “very low”. It has stated in the past that the age should avoid the over-criminalisation of adolescents’ behaviours and prevent access to services. Accordingly, it should respect the evolving capacities of the child and not be set too high.

With inputs from agencies

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