1Associate Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine, M G M Medical College, Indore, M.P.
2Assoc. Prof, Dept. of Forensic Medicine, Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal, M.P.
3Professor, Dept. of Forensic Medicine, AIIMS, Bhopal, M.P.
*Corresponding Author: E-mail: drpramendra@gmail.com
Online published on 14 September, 2015.
The Criminal Amendment Act 2013 has redefined crime and has labeled some activities criminal. This seems appropriate with changing sensitivity of people to issues like privacy, exploitation and helplessness. There is a definite aggression towards preventing crime against women, which is evident in the Act. One aspect although which seems unjustified and out of modern context is enhancing the age for consent of sexual intercourse by women. With more freedom and opportunities for self-exploration available to adolescents and greater acceptance of western culture, there seems to be greater acceptability for physically intimate associations amongst the two genders. Consensual sexual intercourse is getting commoner, even in the absence of a formal relationship.
In this context, increasing the age of consent for sexual intercourse by women puts any sexual relationship before the age of 18 years of the female in category of a crime and the male as accused for the crime. It seems to be unfair and holds a disproportionate gender bias. The relevance of age of maturity, its origin, acceptance in the present scenario and its consequences discussed in this paper.
Crime against women, Consent, Age, sexual intercourse, Gender
