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An increase in Canada’s legal age of sexual consent from 14 to 16 in 2008 doesn’t appear to be safeguarding children — aged 13 and younger — who are most vulnerable to exploitation by adults.

In fact, 39 per cent of children reporting sexual activity before age 12 in British Columbia have a first sexual partner who is 20 years old or older, according to the latest research.

Researchers at Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia conclude this in the first study of its kind in Canada, just published in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality.

SFU adjunct professor of psychology and UBC nursing professor, Elizabeth Saewyc, SFU psychology graduate Bonnie Miller and SFU psychologist David Cox authored the new article. It’s called Age of sexual consent law in Canada: Population-based evidence for law and policy.

Based on analysis of data from the 2008 B.C. Adolescent Health Survey, the researchers evaluated the extent to which increasing Canada’s legal age of sexual consent could achieve government goals for doing so. Saewyc and the McCreary Centre Society conducted the province-wide survey, which included more than 29,000 students in Grades 7 to 12.

Miller, the study’s lead author, says two primary goals drove the government’s increase in the legal age of sexual consent. One was to protect teens under age 16 from being sexually exploited by adults. The other was to prevent those teens’ immaturity from leading them to make poorer sexual health decisions than their older peers.

It won’t be until 2013 that the researchers have enough new data to evaluate whether the increased legal age of sexual consent is reducing adults’ sexual exploitation of pre-16 year olds.

But this study reveals nearly half of the teens 13 and younger first had sex with someone older than the close-in-age-exemptions, which was illegal even under the old law. Only two to three per cent of 14- and 15-year-olds had a first sexual partner who was 20 or older.

“Kids under age 13 are no more protected from sexual exploitation by the revised age of consent law in Canada than they were before the age limit was raised,” says Saewyc. “But this study shows that kids under 13 are the most vulnerable population. They are most likely to have sex with an adult — which has been illegal since 1892 — not 14- or 15-year-olds.”

The researchers note that changes in law should be based on evidence, and the survey behind this study shows that the increased legal age of sexual consent doesn’t address the real problem.

“The law on its own doesn’t actually prevent abuse from occurring,” explains Saewyc. “You can’t arrest someone for sexually abusing a child or teen until that abuse has already happened. We need additional strategies. For example, we need to educate people about the law, and make sure that they understand it’s not okay for older teens and adults to have sexual relationships with much younger teens.”

Among other strategies, Saewyc flags equipping children and younger teens with skills to resist being manipulated into exploitive relationships.

Backgrounder:

The researchers say that the 2008 B.C. Adolescent Health Survey’s results indicate the government’s increase in the legal age of sexual consent is not meeting its second primary goal for doing so. That was to prevent younger teens from being led into sexual relationships with older peers and adults because of their immaturity. “Most teens are not having sex, “ says Miller, “but among those who are, we found 14- and 15-year-olds were generally making the same good decisions as 16- and 17-year-olds.”

The study’s additional key findings include:

• Younger teens were more likely than older teens to report ever being forced to have sex, but this was most often by another youth not adults.
  
  
• There were no significant differences between older and younger teens regarding sex under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or teen pregnancy.
  
  
• A slightly higher percent of younger teens reported three or more sexual partners in the first year of having sex (18 per cent of younger males compared to nine per cent of older males, nine per cent of younger females compared to four per cent of older females).
  
  
• Younger teens were more likely to use condoms, and older teens more likely to use hormonal birth control, but 80-90 per cent of all sexually active teens used some form of effective birth control, and one in three older and younger teens used both condoms and hormonal methods.

The McCreary Centre Society is a non-government not-for-profit organization committed to improving the health of B.C. youth through research, education and community-based projects. It has conducted the province-wide B.C. Adolescent Health Survey every five to six years since 1992.

Saewyc is the society’s research director and Cox is on its board of directors.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funded this study through its institutes of Population and Public Health; Gender and Health; and Human Development, Child and Youth Health.

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