ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, Dec 19, CMC -Sexual and reproductive health and rights groups Friday said that the recent jail sentence imposed on a fisherman for repeatedly sexually abusing a child younger than 10 years old should be a wake-up call for all of Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique.
President of the Grenada Planned Parenthood Association (GPPA), Tonia Frame, and Fred Nunes, a consultant with the Advocates for Safe Parenthood: Improving Reproductive Equity (ASPIRE), said in a statement that they have supported the proposed change to the Age of Civil Legal Responsibility (Amendment) Bill, reducing the age from 18 to 16 for sexual and reproductive health services.
The bill contemplates reducing the age further if there is “good cause” to do so, and proposes a further cautious parliamentary process for that step.
The bill had been submitted to Parliament during the third session, but in August the Parliament session ended and the bill is yet to be re-submitted.
The bill ,if it is re-submitted and passed will allow the minister to insert the definition that, notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, a minor who has attained the age of 16 years shall have the legal capacity to consent to any sexual or reproductive health treatment, including diagnostic procedures, and that his or her consent shall be as effective as if that minor were of full age.
“Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, the Minister may, in consultation with the Minister responsible for Health, if he or she is satisfied that there is good cause to do so, by Order published in the Gazette, provide that a minor who has attained the age of 12 years but has not yet attained the age of 16 years shall have the legal capacity to consent to any sexual or reproductive health treatment specified in that Order, including diagnostic procedures, and his or her consent shall be as effective as if that minor were of full age.”
The age of sexual consent in Grenada, according to the Criminal Code, is 16 years.
“We have provided the Government with substantial data establishing that in Grenada and the Caribbean, there is already abundant and compelling “good cause” to reduce the age far below 16 today,” Frame and Nunes said in a joint statement, adding that the situation involving the fisherman “has strengthened our case.
“In fact, we have recommended that there should be no age barrier at all. We should trust the professionalism of our healthcare workers,” they said, noting that Guyana already allows children of any age to have access to HIV testing without parental consent.
“We see no justification for treating HIV any differently from other sexually transmitted diseases or reproductive health services.
“The wretched experience in Carriacou puts further focus on the ineffectiveness of the punishment mechanism on which we rely. Incarceration alone does not deter sexual predators and certainly cannot constrain pedophiles.”
The two officials say punishing individuals is “no way to address a systemic, cultural phenomenon” adding it would be instructive to learn what, if any, orientation to sexual education the fisherman received in his formative years, 30 years ago.
CMC/ls/ir/2025