Calling two midteens having sex "rape" or even worse "pedophilia" is plain abusive.
I'm not talking about older men here.
I'm saying that we need to be careful to avoid creating harm where there was none.
I'm not talking about older men here.
I'm saying that we need to be careful to avoid creating harm where there was none.
Our "justice" and "health" systems in New Zealand can cause lifelong harm to kids by black-and-white following the rules (at best, because wisdom is difficult or caring is risky).
Tht article doesn't mention the majority of those marriages between 17 year old female "children" marrying male "adults" (that are 18, 19 or 20 years old).
Children versus adults is a common framing, that is repeated by even the less biased sources such as the BBC or PBS: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interactive/child-marriag...
Crossing a legal line from a "child" of 17 to an "adult" of 18 doesn't have the implications about real world differences in wisdom we might hope for.
If you bucket all the marries this law would affect, the 50 year old marriage is a far outlier. Most of the marriage gaps for these minors are < 1-2yrs.