Jamaica Is In Trouble If It Decriminalizes “Consensual” Sex Between Minors

In December 2025, Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) supported the notion that consensual sex between minors should be decriminalized. The group’s proposal included “close-in-age exemptions” to prevent young people from being funneled into the criminal justice system for peer-to-peer interactions.

Their recommendation includes a primary provision where no offense occurs if the partners are less than two years apart, and a secondary tiered defense for age gaps up to five years, provided the younger party is at least 12 to 14 years old and no exploitation or power imbalance exists.

Now, we first have to confront what this proposal is really asking us to accept. It is asking us to consider, even remotely, that it is acceptable for minors to be engaging in sexual activity and intercourse under the cover of what is being called “consent.” That alone should force a national pause.

In Jamaica, adulthood begins at 18. That is not arbitrary. It reflects a recognition that certain decisions require a level of physical, emotional, and psychological development. Sex is not a casual act in its consequences, although many of us treat it as such. It carries the possibility of pregnancy, disease, lifelong emotional impact, and a redirection of a young person’s future. These are realities that demand maturity.

Children should be focused on growing, learning, and preparing for life. If we decriminalize this, we are not being neutral, we are sending a signal. We are normalizing and, by extension, encouraging a pathway that distracts them from that development and exposes them to outcomes they are not ready to handle, including teenage pregnancy and school dropout.

Science is clear; the adolescent brain is not fully developed. Young people may believe they understand the consequences of their actions, and adults may convince themselves that they do, but they do not. Their capacity for long-term risk assessment, impulse control, and informed decision-making is still forming.

If a 14- or 15-year-old cannot legally consent to sex with an adult because we recognize the moral depravity, imbalance of power and exploitation, how does it suddenly become logical to argue that a child is capable of informed consent in sexual relationships simply because the other party is close in age?

The issue is not only about who the other person is. It is also about whether a child has the developmental capacity to make that decision at all. And a child does not. To put it bluntly, a minor is never in a state to consent to any form of sexual activity.

May we also not ignore the national context.

Jamaica already faces serious challenges. We currently grapple with one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the English-speaking Caribbean. According to a 2023 UNICEF report, there are between 36 and 72 births per 1,000 women among adolescents aged 15–19, with teenage pregnancies accounting for roughly 18% of all births in the country.

This crisis fuels a cycle of instability, resulting in higher school dropout rates among young mothers and leaving them with a 45% higher unemployment rate compared to older women.

When 18% of births come from teenage mothers, and a notable portion of those are to girls as young as 15–18, the response cannot be to lower the moral and legal guardrails. The response must be stronger protection, better education, and greater support systems.

According to a 2012 National KABP study led by Sharlene Beckford Jarrett and analyzed by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and the Jamaica Ministry of Health, Jamaican males have an alarmingly young average age of sexual debut at 13.5 years, with nearly 65% having sex by age 15.

This early start is linked to significant health risks, as almost half of these young men reported having three or more partners in a single year. Despite these encounters, condom use remained inconsistent across the board.

These are not abstract statistics. They represent real lives that are being limited before they even begin.

There is not necessarily a lack of programs. To name a few sources of education, our youth benefit from the mandatory HFLE curriculum in every classroom and the National Family Planning Board (NFPB) engage in outreach reaching tens of thousands annually. Yet the statistics speak for themselves.

Lawmakers must, therefore, remember a basic principle: The mere frequency of a behavior in society is never a valid reason for the state to normalize or endorse it through legislation. If the law simply mirrors existing social trends rather than setting a standard for protection and order, it ceases to serve its primary purpose as a safeguard for the vulnerable.

Although one would not relish the idea of a child facing the court system, this is not a valid response to wanting to de-clog the system. Maintaining a nation’s legal backbone is paramount. A more effective starting point would be addressing the failures in parenting, or the negative school and community environments many of our children are in but that must be coupled with—not replaced by—a firm criminal framework. Even if modifications are considered, they must not be stretched to the point of legalization.

Director of Public Law, Restorative and Preventative Justice, Julia Moncriefe Wiggan, claims that the initiative is meant to keep minors out of the criminal justice system. But at what cost? Are we prepared to trade the long-term protection of our children for short-term judicial convenience?

If we are consistent, the argument moves in the opposite direction. If adulthood begins at 18, if major responsibilities and privileges are tied to that age, such as being able to drink or obtain a driver’s license, then the age of consent should reflect that same standard, not move further away from it.

A society is judged by how it protects its children. We cannot afford to send the message that early sexual activity is something to be legally accommodated. Jamaica cannot move forward by weakening its safeguards for its youngest citizens. The future of the country sits in our classrooms, not in adult decisions being imposed on children before they are ready.

For a country that wants stability, development, and a future, weakening the protection of children is not the way forward.

What we ought to remember is anything that will result in either short or long-term issues for a society must be regulated and sanctioned by law for the protection of the people.

If Jamaica wants to move in a direction that protects its youth and remain in God’s “good graces” as we so often boast that we are, then it is in our best interest not to go down this road.