An inter-ministerial committee is set to recommend lowering the age of consent from 18 to 16, the Times of Malta has learnt.

By law, a 16-year-old can get married but can end up in prison if they have sex with somebody under 18.

When contacted by this paper, government whip Godfrey Farrugia said the inter-ministerial committee, which he chairs, would soon be forwarding its recommendations to Civil Liberties Minister Helena Dalli.

The committee was set up following a report Dr Farrugia tabled in Parliament earlier this year, which was compiled as a result of discussions between the parliamentary committees for health, family affairs and social affairs.

Dr Farrugia said the inter-ministerial committee had been meeting throughout the summer and was now in the final stages of preparing its report.

The recommendation to lower the age of consent will be presented to Cabinet and put to public consultation.

“There is a plan; things are moving forward. In my personal opinion, I can see lowering the age of consent being discussed in Parliament early next year,” Dr Farrugia said.

Last Saturday, a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy were arraigned for having sex.

The police got to know about the case after the girl claimed she had been raped but later admitted she had consented to have sex with the boy.

In view of the law in force, the police were forced to initiate criminal proceedings against the two minors for defilement.

Both teenagers were given a three-year conditional discharge, though they could have potentially faced a prison term.

Asked about this, Dr Farrugia, who made it clear he was expressing his own personal opinion, said he felt that sex between minors under 16 should not be a criminal offence. “It is an injustice to label them as juvenile offenders,” he said.

The Office of the Commissioner for Children agreed, saying that society’s approach to sexual relations between minors should be more educational than legal.

A spokeswoman for the Commissioner said that minors who engaged in sexual relations with one another should not be criminalised as long as they were consensual and neither of the parties involved in the relationship was abused.

She said the law should seek to punish adults who engaged in sexual relations with minors, whether it was consensual or not.

Minors should be able to benefit from a solid programme of sex education that was holistic, placing sex within the framework of stable human relationships based on genuine and mutual love and respect, the spokeswoman added.

She said the sex education offered to minors should in no way judge the sexual beliefs and practices of minors but, instead, guide them along a path to help them discover their sexuality.

Sex education offered to minors should be tailored to their individual needs, the spokeswoman continued, and be adapted to their psychosexual development.

She pointed out that families and schools bore equal and complementary responsibilities for delivering this kind of sex education to children and youths.