The “Romeo and Juliet” clause, named after one of the most famous love stories in literature, is causing a stir.
She was invited into the law voted unanimously Monday evening in the National Assembly to protect young minors from sexual crimes.
This text creates an age of non-consent of children for a sexual act with an adult fixed at 15 years and at 18 years in cases of incest.
But the clause, named after Shakespeare's tragedy, provides for an exception: the penalties provided for by the text do not apply if the adult and the minor are less than five years apart.
Concretely, the rule of “non-consent” would not concern adolescents of 13 or 14 years who have sexual relations with young adults of 18 or 19 years.
Penetration would then not automatically be considered rape.
Read also:
Consent of minors: towards the end of an ambiguity
This exception was adopted so as not to penalize
“adolescent love affairs”
.
The amendments to try to reduce this age gap to 3 years were rejected.
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