Jean-Marc Mor­ris

Stu­dent, Hugh Wood­ing Law School

With the procla­ma­tion of the Chil­dren's Act No 12 of 2012 ("the Act") on 18th May 2015, sev­er­al changes fol­lowed. A "child" is now de­fined as "a per­son un­der the age of 18 years." Be­fore the procla­ma­tion of the Act, a child was de­fined as a per­son un­der the age of 16 years and the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act Chap 11:28 list­ed var­i­ous of­fences for en­gag­ing in ac­tiv­i­ties with per­sons un­der 16 years of age.

How­ev­er, un­der the new leg­is­la­tion, cer­tain sec­tions of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act have been re­pealed, widen­ing the pa­ra­me­ters un­der which per­sons can be charged.

The Act puts in­to ef­fect cer­tain oblig­a­tions which are list­ed in the Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child, to which T&T is a par­ty. In oth­er words, the Act is putting in­to ef­fect what the coun­try agreed to in this Con­ven­tion to bring the coun­try up to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

Not on­ly did the Act re­peal of­fences but it cre­at­ed new ones:

�2 Fe­male Gen­i­tal Mu­ti­la­tion–Ac­cord­ing to sec­tion 9, fe­male gen­i­tal mu­ti­la­tion, the prac­tice of par­tial­ly or to­tal­ly re­mov­ing the ex­ter­nal gen­i­talia of girls, is now an of­fence and any per­son found guilty on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion is li­able to a fine of fifty thou­sand dol­lars ($50,000) and to im­pris­on­ment for 10 years.

�2 Sex­u­al Pen­e­tra­tion of a Child–Ad­di­tion­al­ly an of­fence known as sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a child has been cre­at­ed. The Act states that pen­e­tra­tion of a child in­cludes:

(a) the in­ser­tion of any body part or any ob­ject in­to a child's bod­i­ly ori­fice; or

(b) the in­ser­tion of a part of a child's body in­to a per­son's bod­i­ly ori­fice.

The Act de­fines bod­i­ly ori­fice as anus, vagi­na, ure­thra, mouth, ear or nos­tril, and this ap­plies to chil­dren of both sex­es. Ac­cord­ing to sec­tion 18, a per­son who sex­u­al­ly pen­e­trates a child com­mits an of­fence and is li­able on con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment to im­pris­on­ment for life.

�2 Sex­u­al touch­ing–Fur­ther, the Act states that it is an of­fence to sex­u­al­ly touch any child un­der the age of 16. Touch­ing or any oth­er ac­tiv­i­ty is de­fined in sec­tion 3 of the Act. Any­one who sex­u­al­ly touch­es a child un­der 16 is li­able, up­on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion, to a fine of fifty thou­sand dol­lars ($50,000.00) and to im­pris­on­ment for 10 years or (b) on con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment to im­pris­on­ment for 20 years.

Ex­cep­tions

As with all laws, there are ex­cep­tions. Un­der sec­tion 20 of the Act there is pro­vi­sion for the de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty be­tween chil­dren. In oth­er words, the Act makes pro­vi­sion for the in­evitable ex­per­i­men­ta­tion that oc­curs be­tween chil­dren.

The scope of these ex­cep­tions is very lim­it­ed. The ex­cep­tions on­ly ap­ply to cer­tain age groups and are de­pen­dent up­on cer­tain oth­er con­di­tions.

More­over, the Act, un­der sec­tions 26, 27 and 28, makes pro­vi­sion for chil­dren who are law­ful­ly mar­ried. Un­der the Hin­du Mar­riage Act Chap 45:03 and the Mus­lim Mar­riage and Di­vorce Act Chap­ter 45:02, chil­dren as young as 14 and 12 years re­spec­tive­ly, may be law­ful­ly mar­ried un­der re­li­gious rights.

The sec­tions of the Act pro­vide that con­duct by a per­son in re­la­tion to a child that would oth­er­wise con­sti­tute an of­fence against a child would not be con­sid­ered an of­fence once they are law­ful­ly mar­ried to each oth­er, in ad­di­tion to oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions.

�2 This col­umn is not le­gal ad­vice. If you have a le­gal prob­lem, you should con­sult a le­gal ad­vis­er. Co-or­di­na­tor: Roshan Ram­char­i­tar