Sexual activity cannot reasonably be considered separate from or unrelated to pregnancy, childbirth, and co-parenting. Under Ghana’s Criminal Code, the current age of sexual consent is 16 years, while the legal age of marriage is 18 years. This disparity warrants critical examination, particularly with regard to whether the age of sexual consent should be raised from 16 to 18 years.
A basic sociological understanding of Ghanaian society demonstrates that many of the challenges confronting individuals are not necessarily products of personal deficiency or moral failure. Rather, they may arise from the country’s legal, structural, institutional, and collective cultural arrangements—or, in some instances, their misalignment. Consequently, these structural arrangements require critical review and reconsideration rather than an assumption that individuals alone are responsible for correcting the problems within society.
The age of sexual consent for children in Ghana has been the subject of sustained debate among scholars, legal practitioners, child-welfare and child-protection professionals, and social workers. Although the statutory age of marriage has generally not generated the same level of controversy, the age of sexual consent has remained contentious, particularly when considered in relation to the legal age of marriage.
From a technical and logical perspective, the disparity between the two ages raises broader questions about the coherence of the legal framework governing children, sexuality, marriage, and family formation. Addressing the concerns surrounding the age of sexual consent could therefore contribute significantly to resolving the related concerns arising from the difference between the age of sexual consent and the age of marriage.
UNICEF has emphasised that the determination of an appropriate age of sexual consent should take into primary consideration the risk of sexual abuse, the consequences of early sexual activity for children’s rights and development, and the potential for children and adolescents to be sexually exploited or manipulated through gifts, financial benefits, or other forms of inducement. This highlights the particular vulnerability of children and adolescents to exploitation, especially where material assistance is offered in circumstances of economic or social need.
When a child or adolescent is offered a gift or other form of assistance—particularly one that addresses an urgent or pressing need—the power imbalance between the child and the adult may increase the likelihood of manipulation or exploitation. In Ghana and other West African countries, where some children have limited parental support and limited access to direct social protection, such vulnerabilities may be further intensified when an adult uses gifts, financial assistance, or other forms of support as a means of exerting influence over a child.
It is within this broader social, economic, legal, and cultural context that Ghana’s age of sexual consent merits critical re-evaluation. Such a review should consider not only the formal legal age but also the practical realities of children’s vulnerability, the risk of exploitation and abuse, their developmental needs and rights, and the relationship between sexual consent, marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and parental responsibilities.
A comprehensive reassessment would therefore provide an opportunity to determine whether the existing legal framework adequately protects children and is sufficiently consistent with the broader objectives of child protection and social welfare.
Notwithstanding the fact that some jurisdictions prescribe 13 or 14 years as the minimum age of sexual consent, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has expressed concern that 13 years is too low an age for sexual consent. At the same time, it recognises the need to avoid setting the threshold so high that it results in the over-criminalisation of consensual sexual behaviour among adolescents.
The determination of an appropriate age of sexual consent should therefore be approached carefully and contextually. In my view, the age of sexual consent should first be examined from the perspectives of biological and physiological health, as well as the specific socio-economic and geographical circumstances within which children and adolescents live.
Sexual activity during childhood or adolescence may have significant biological, psychological, social, and developmental consequences. In the Ghanaian context, adolescent sexual activity may result in pregnancy, thereby creating responsibilities that extend beyond the individuals involved in the sexual act to include the unborn child and, eventually, the newborn.
For the girl who becomes pregnant, the consequences can be particularly significant. Depending on her age and stage of physical development, she may not yet possess the biological maturity necessary to safely carry a pregnancy. She may also lack the knowledge, resources, and practical capacity required to adequately care for herself during pregnancy and to care for a newborn after childbirth. These challenges can be compounded by limited access to prenatal and maternal healthcare, particularly among girls and women living in rural and underserved communities where healthcare facilities and other essential services may be inadequate or difficult to access.
This reality raises a fundamental question: who assumes responsibility for the pregnant girl, the boy who fathered the pregnancy, and the child who is subsequently born? In circumstances where poverty and economic vulnerability are widespread, exposing children to early sexual activity may have consequences that extend beyond immediate health concerns and place considerable financial and social burdens on already disadvantaged families.
The social consequences for a girl who becomes pregnant at an early age may also be severe. Stigma and discrimination associated with adolescent pregnancy can create significant emotional and psychological distress. Feelings of shame, regret, rejection, anxiety, or hopelessness may affect the girl’s well-being and her ability to cope with pregnancy and motherhood. In some circumstances, unresolved emotional distress may also affect the relationship between the mother and her child, potentially contributing to neglect, mistreatment, or other forms of abuse, whether overt or concealed.
The boy who fathers the pregnancy may similarly lack the emotional maturity, psychological preparedness, financial capacity, or social support required to assume responsibility for the pregnancy and the child. Consequently, the issue of sexual consent cannot be considered solely in terms of whether an adolescent is capable of expressing agreement to a sexual act.
It must also be examined within the broader realities of biological development, health, psychological maturity, socio-economic vulnerability, family responsibility, and the capacity of adolescents to cope with the consequences that may follow from sexual activity.
Boys who become fathers may themselves lack the experience, knowledge, emotional maturity, and financial resources necessary to provide the pregnant girl with the basic emotional, material, and financial support she requires. Where both the boy and girl experience stigma, they may have to contend with feelings of shame, pain, regret, anxiety, and social rejection, making it considerably more difficult for them to navigate the already demanding realities of pregnancy and impending parenthood. Under such circumstances, their psychological well-being may be adversely affected.
Access to meaningful support may also become severely limited when the very family members, friends, relatives, or members of the wider community who would ordinarily constitute the child’s support system are themselves sources or perpetuators of the stigma. Consequently, young people experiencing an unplanned pregnancy may find themselves isolated at precisely the point at which they require the greatest emotional, social, and practical support.
These context-specific concerns suggest that raising the age of sexual consent should not be understood primarily as an attempt to criminalise adolescent sexual behaviour. Rather, it may be considered as a child-protection measure intended to safeguard the biological, psychological, social, and developmental interests of Ghanaian children within the particular circumstances in which they live.
Such an approach should, however, be accompanied by appropriate measures to ensure that adolescents are not subjected to disproportionate criminal sanctions for consensual behaviour between peers.
More importantly, raising the age of sexual consent to correspond with the legal age of marriage would create greater consistency within the legal framework and address the longstanding concerns arising from the existing disparity between the two ages. It would establish a clearer legal relationship between sexual activity, marriage, pregnancy, and parental responsibility.
Where pregnancy occurs between two adolescents, however, the question of marriage should not be treated as an automatic or inevitable consequence. Any legal or social response must give primary consideration to the best interests, safety, autonomy, and welfare of both adolescents and the child who may be born.
Marriage should not be compelled merely because a pregnancy has occurred. Where both parents freely and lawfully choose to remain together and are capable of providing a safe and supportive environment, the continued involvement of both parents may provide important emotional, social, and economic benefits to the child.
A child who is raised in a stable environment in which both parents are willing and able to participate meaningfully in the child’s upbringing may have greater opportunities to receive consistent care, affection, protection, and support. Conversely, legal, cultural, or social pressures that force or unduly constrain the relationship between the parents may generate conflict and instability, potentially affecting the emotional and material well-being of the child.
Accordingly, any reform of the legal framework should seek to protect children not only from sexual exploitation and abuse but also from the social, psychological, and economic consequences that may arise when adolescent pregnancy occurs without adequate family and institutional support.
When two people who are legally capable of conceiving a child are prohibited from establishing a shared household or committing to family life, the child who is born from that relationship may become the most vulnerable and innocent victim of the resulting legal and social arrangement. The child has no control over the circumstances of her birth, no ability to articulate her needs, and no meaningful power to determine how those needs should be met.
Legal arrangements that, directly or indirectly, deprive a child of the love, care, support, and regular presence of both parents ought to be critically examined against the paramount consideration of the child’s best interests. Where the law creates circumstances that expose a child to avoidable deprivation rather than providing meaningful protection, it raises serious questions about whether the law is achieving its fundamental protective purpose. A legal framework that produces punishment and hardship without adequately safeguarding the child risks becoming, in substance, a distortion of the very purpose for which law exists.
In some jurisdictions, where a minor becomes pregnant but is legally unable to marry, or where a child is born to an adult woman and a father who is absent or unavailable, the state may provide social protection mechanisms and financial assistance to ensure that the child’s basic needs are met. Such institutional support can help prevent the circumstances of the parents from becoming the lifelong disadvantage of the child.
Unfortunately, comparable mechanisms appear to be limited within the Ghanaian context. Although legal processes exist through which a parent may seek maintenance for a child, the procedures involved can be costly, formal, time-consuming, and difficult for vulnerable mothers to navigate. Consequently, mothers who require assistance may be unable, or may lack the resources, to effectively resort to the courts for the enforcement of their children’s rights.
An equally troubling aspect of the situation is the limited practical capacity of the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) to secure consistent financial and parental responsibility from men who father children with vulnerable or underage girls. Although the Department has an important statutory and social-protection role, institutional limitations may make it difficult to compel sustained compliance with maintenance obligations. The result is that the legal responsibility of the father may exist in principle while the practical means of enforcing that responsibility remain inadequate.
The situation may be further complicated where fathers perceive that the law permits them to father a child while simultaneously restricting their ability to establish a lawful family relationship with the child’s mother. Where a man is expected to assume financial responsibility for a child but is prevented from forming a recognised family unit with the mother, the resulting legal tension may undermine parental engagement and create circumstances in which responsibility is neglected.
This does not excuse parental irresponsibility, but it demonstrates how conflicting legal rules can produce consequences that ultimately affect the child. The central concern, therefore, should not merely be whether the law regulates the conduct of the adults involved, but whether it adequately protects the child who is incapable of protecting herself.
A legal framework that permits intimacy capable of producing a child, while simultaneously creating substantial barriers to the formation of a stable family environment, must be examined carefully for its consequences for the child’s welfare.
A more coherent legal framework would ensure that where adults are legally permitted to engage in conduct that may result in the birth of a child, the law also provides realistic and effective pathways for those parents to assume joint responsibility for the child’s upbringing, care, and development. Where marriage or cohabitation is legally restricted, there should at minimum be accessible, enforceable, and adequately resourced mechanisms that guarantee the child’s right to maintenance, care, protection, and meaningful parental involvement.
Ultimately, the legitimacy of any law concerning family relationships should be measured not only by the restrictions it imposes on adults but also by the protection it affords children who have no control over the circumstances into which they are born. A legal system that places the best interests, welfare, and dignity of the child at the centre of its operation is more consistent with the fundamental protective purpose of law.
Considering the fact that UNICEF warns against criminalisation of sexual behaviours, it may not be rational, logical or realistic to peg the age of marriage and sexual consent at 21 years. Marriage is a common practice and an acceptable sociocultural element in our society which is instituted and nurtured to unify families, nurture and socialise children, promote economic activities and perpetuate community and the nation. In view of this, many people come to understand the fundamentals of marriage through primary, secondary and anticipatory socialisation.
The knowledge, skills and experience of marriage occur continuously through multiple agencies and agents throughout a person’s lifespan. It is expected that by the age of majority, one may have acquired the basic skills, knowledge and understanding to sign up for it.
However, if it is the case that there is reservation about the 18-year legal age of marriage, the best way to address it should not be to raise the age to 21 years, as proposed by the Constitutional Review Committee chaired by Professor H. Kwesi Prempeh. Increasing the age of sexuality excessively will create longer years for the biological need related to sexuality to be fulfilled and stifle adults’ marriage intentions-a biological insensitivity and an extremely prolonged and irrational control over sexuality.
The concern that marrying at the age of 18 years can bring can be addressed using a non-punitive or oppressive law, but with a more nurturing and supportive intervention. A helpful approach is to resort to mandatory and sustained counselling to support and assist couples in the marriage endeavour.
To circumvent this challenge and ensure that married couples who are between 18 and 21 years can have a relatively stable, manageable marriage experience, they should be mandated to sign up for bi-annual, ideally a six-monthly counselling engagement with a social worker specialised in child welfare and family protection.
The role of the social worker should extend beyond initial oversight to include ongoing engagement with legally young couples regarding their marital experiences. This support should focus on helping couples navigate challenges, manage disagreements, and resolve conflicts that may arise during the course of the marriage. Following such engagement, the social worker should be empowered to recommend the legal dissolution of the marriage where it is determined that the relationship has become persistently acrimonious and poses harm to either spouse or to any child born within the union.
Indeed, age alone does not guarantee a successful marriage. Rather, marital success is more often shaped by maturity gained through experience, together with adequate social and institutional support. Consequently, it is important to strike a balance between ensuring that individuals are not too young to enter marriage without sufficient understanding and responsibility, while also avoiding unnecessary restrictions that delay the legal recognition of intimate relationships.
It is within this context that I propose 18 years, an age already widely recognised as the age of majority, as the appropriate legal threshold for both consent and marriage. Aligning the ages of sexual consent and marriage would provide greater legal clarity and protection for partners, lessen the burden on parents and guardians of young adults, and, most importantly, promote the well-being of children born within such unions. By ensuring that these children are raised in stable, supportive, and non-conflictual family environments under a coherent legal framework, society can better safeguard their welfare and development.
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Author: Emmanuel Asare Owusu
Social Work lecturer
Methodist University Ghana
