What does age of consent mean?

The age of consent is the age at which the law considers a person mature enough to make adult decisions about his or her sex life.

In Kenya, the age of consent is 18 years

A person who hasn’t reached the age of consent is legally unable to agree to have sex because he or she is not yet considered capable of fully understanding sex and its consequences.

Whoever has sex with a person who is under the age of consent is therefore breaking the law and can be jailed for life or 17 years minimum. 

In some states, the offender could be sent to jail and, after sentencing, be required to register as a sex offender.

CAN HAVING SEX BE A CRIME IF MY PARTNER AND I BOTH WANT IT?

Having sex is a crime because the law considers you too young to fully understand what you are doing.

If you don’t fully understand what you are doing, you are not yet capable of deciding what’s best for you. 

You are also at risk of being manipulated by others who try to convince you to do things that are against your own interest and your own safety.

To protect young people from these risks, lawmakers have decided that they cannot legally agree to have sex with somebody until you they reached the age of consent. 

At this point, they will hopefully be mature enough to understand the implications of their actions.

According to the law, if you are below the age of consent, even if you agree to have sex with somebody—even if it’s totally voluntary—your “yes” doesn’t count because you most likely do not fully know what you are doing.

At the same time, whoever has sex with a partner who is under the age of consent is breaking the law—even if the younger partner wants to do it—because the older partner is taking advantage of a person who doesn’t fully know what he or she is doing.

WHY IS THERE AN AGE LIMIT FOR SEX?

Everybody should agree that a law protecting children from any form of sexual activity makes absolute sense.

Therefore, the real question here should be why state legislators have set the age limits as high as they are—so high that they exclude most teenagers from having sex legally.

The underlying idea behind the age of consent laws—laws that make it illegal for people under a certain age to agree to have sex—is that although some teenagers are physically ready for sex, many of them are not ready mentally and emotionally.

What many teenagers fail to realize is that sex is way more than just a physical act; the emotions involved in sexual activities can be so strong that even adults sometimes struggle with them.

Life as a teenager is already challenging enough. 

Teens are under pressure for many reasons, and adding sex with all its emotional implications can be too much to handle. It can be a kind of emotional overdose.

Jammed-up with too many intense emotions, teens can easily lose their ability to make well-informed decisions. 

This increases the chances of making serious mistakes, such as trusting the wrong person or failing to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections (STI) and unwanted pregnancy.