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Young people in the UK increasingly see having sex below the legal age of consent, 16, as "normal part of growing up" — as a result, they not only endanger themselves, but risk contracting sexually transmitted diseases and/or becoming pregnant.
Moreover, the report apportions blame to public officials and health professionals, suggesting their failure to detect the abuse of young people in cases such as those in Oxfordshire, Rochdale and Rotherham were symptomatic of a misguided but burgeoning belief that underage sex was commonplace — relatively harmless, as long as the individuals involved consent.
Author Norman Wells, FET Director, said "fundamental flaws" in professional attitudes had "directly contributed" towards the exploitation and abuse of children in the UK.
"The evidence from recent serious case reviews clearly demonstrates that fundamental flaws in professional attitudes towards underage sexual activity have directly contributed to exploitation and abuse. Relaxed attitudes towards underage sex have led to a paralysis in child protection. There is no indication of a willingness to address these underlying issues either at the local or the national level," Norman said.The report is said to be based on analysis of high profile cases of child sexual exploitation. It claims researchers identified a refusal on the part of professionals to raise questions about underage sex or even about a father's identity when presented with a pregnant teenager under the age of 16.
Moreover, the very agencies responsible for protecting young people from sexual exploitation are accused of facilitating a culture in which the response of professionals to underage sex is frequently limited to the confidential provision of contraception. Many health professionals "expect" under-16s to be sexually active, meaning access to sexual health services fails to elicit consideration of whether the girls involved might be suffering abuse.
Wells argues the approach to relationships and sex education in schools, which he claims encourages children to decide for themselves when they're ready to embark on a sexual relationship, would prove counter-productive, exposing them to the risk of sexual exploitation.
It goes on to cite the serious case review of the Oxfordshire sex scandal, which noted the "political and professional reluctance" to issue any firm statements about something being "wrong," had contributed to "an environment where it is easier for vulnerable young people to be exploited."
"The evidence suggests the relativistic approach advocated by leading campaigners for statutory sex education is not the solution, but part of the problem. Children, young people and professionals alike all need a clear moral compass in order to safely negotiate the confused and confusing landscape that lies before them," Wells concluded.
Professor David Paton, an expert on the economics of teenage pregnancy at Nottingham University Business School, wrote the report's introduction. He described the findings as "utterly damning."
"With the publication of this report, policymakers and professionals working in sexual health no longer have any excuse to ignore the evidence. It is of the utmost importance that the government takes the findings of this report seriously and undertakes an urgent review of its approach to confidential sexual health services," Professor Paton added.
However, others expressed disquiet at the report itself. Helen Marshall, Chief Executive of UK sexual health charity Brook, slammed its findings, saying the "shocking" document linked the "two very separate issues" of underage sex and child sexual exploitation.
"We are extremely concerned about the negative arguments made throughout the report linking the two. Despite societal assumptions and complex challenges young people face, the average age of first sexual activity in the UK is 16," she explained.
Available data suggests the average age for girls is slightly under 16, and for boys slightly over 16. This is under the global average (17.3), although older than in Iceland, where Europeans have sex youngest — people on average lose their virginity at 15.6.
Nonetheless, there is indeed a historic trend towards lower ages of virginity loss in the UK — in the 1950s, the average age was 21, by 1980 it had declined to 17 years.
Moreover, Office for National Statistics figures for 2016 indicate the UK has the highest teenage birth rates in Western Europe, at 6.8 per 1,000 15-17-year-olds — compared to 1.1 in Denmark and 1.3 in the Netherlands. Overall, in Europe the UK only had a lower child pregnancy rate than Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Latvia.
Reader Comments
"Using detailed mortality data from Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Italy, Goldstein and his colleagues tracked the accident hump as far back as 1751. They found that this high-risk period (and, presumably, peak testosterone production) has been steadily shifting downward by about 2.5 months per decade. Other studies suggest puberty for girls has been arriving about 3.6 months earlier per decade since the 1800s."
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"Additionally, the researchers wrote, other anecdotes suggest boys have been getting more mature faster. For example, in the mid-1700s, boys in J.S. Bach's boys choir in Leipzig, Germany, aged out of the choir around age 18 when their voices changed. In 20th-century London, the average age of voice change was 13."
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"Early maturation raises many concerns about children growing up physically before their brains have time to catch up, but Goldstein said there are other implications as well. While boys and girls mature faster physically, they also get married, choose careers and have children later. "The biological and social phases in the lives of young people are drifting apart," he said."
The way we handle the education and development of children in modern society is vastly different than how it was done in native cultures, for example as it was practiced in the Native American tribes prior to the setllement of people after the discovery of Columbus. To get an idea there is an article on the Wikipedia: [Link] A similar pattern could probably be found for many other indignous cultures.
From observations of children/young adults quite a few can't see the point of learning in school, and do not benefit much from the times they spend there. School becomes a prison for them. It is as if society keeps them there artificially, because there is no useful work for them to do.
Hormone packed burgers and this article team up to add a new meaning to the marketing jingle; "I'm Lovin' It" [Link]
Laws have been refined through hundreds of years on this topic. We have all the laws we need. Exploitation, whether sexual or by other means, is a criminal act. It isn't right to suggest that somehow exploitation which involves sex is any worse than one where it involved any other kind of crime, and the reason is that crimes involving sex are already clearly defined in the laws and can prosecuted apart from other acts, and there too it's the criminality of the action, not the age, which defines what is illegal.
People might not like the idea that their stunted growth young man or young woman is having sex, but would they care if these same youngsters were married and living in house somewhere's like people did 100 years ago? See we are going the wrong way here.
It isn't the sex that's the problem, it's the inability of these same youths to become functioning members of society as the young men and young women that they truly are, which nature intended them to be.
So the real issue is about finding more ways to pile on top of today's youth, and in order to prevent them from fulfilling useful lives for as long as possible by delaying and denying that they are really people who have certain rights and who can do what they choose whether or not others approve of their choices or not.