What is: consent?
Consent is where someone freely agrees to sexual activity. The person’s age is an important part of consent.
Consent can get a bit tricky…
Sometimes a person does not ‘freely’ agree to sexual activity. In Victoria, Australia, consent is not given if a person is:
- Forced
- Afraid of harm to themselves or someone else
- Held captive
- Asleep/unconscious or drunk/drug affected
- Mistaken about the sexual nature of the act, or does not understand what is happening
- Mistaken that the act is for medical/hygienic purposes.
In Victoria, Australia the law states that:
- Children under 10 cannot consent to any sexual act. This is because children of this age are believed not to fully understand sexual activity.
- Children between 10 and 16 cannot agree to have sex with someone more than 2 years older. This is because it is believed that children of this age could be manipulated by older people.
Young people under 18 are also not considered able to consent to sexual contact with a person in a position of care or responsibility for them. People in a position of care or responsibility for you include your teacher, foster parent, employer, youth worker, sports coach, counselor and health professional.
If you have a cognitive impairment such as a mental illness, intellectual disability, or brain injury, it is against the law for people providing services or programs for you to have sexual contact with you, even once you are over 18.
The laws on sex might be different to this depending on where you live. In Australia you can find out the law for your state or territory by going to the lawstuff website. If you are from another country you can find out the 'age of consent' from the Avert website.
Links
For more informationFor more information about this or to contact the South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault go to the SECASA website. |
