EUROPE (GENERALIA)

Index → Europe

Featured: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina,  Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic And Slovakia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Great Britain, Greece, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuana, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Ukraine, Yugoslavia

“Ethnic” Groups: Gitano (Spanish Gypsies), Olivos (Andalusian Pueblo), Saami / Lapps, Highland Scots, Serbs, Romani

Also: The Circum-Mediterranean

Introduction, Generalia

Age of Consent

Cross-National Survey of Studies

Additional refs.

Introduction, Generalia

The most obvious source for European childhood sexual socialisation is the 1997/2001 4-volume International Encyclopedia of Sexuality chief-edited by Francoeur. The corresponding entries are linked in the left column of country chapters [IES]. The work contains impressions on childhood/adolescent sexual behaviour development, sexual socialisation curricula and sex education facilities for 17 European entries. Most probably reflective of sexological priorities, the entries of developmental data vary in length and depth. Very few data are published in accessible languages, which is probably most true for Eastern Europe. Comparative cross-European studies on sexual behaviour socialisation (such as a 1981 study on European tolerance for sexual play; Lacombe, 1984:p33; Draijer, 1984:p18; Brongersma, 1987:p127)[1] appear to be rare. As reviewed below a number of studies provide numeric comparisons with the American case (cf. chapter Nonnative North America); qualitative and theoretical cross-cultural interpretations, however, are few in number (e.g., Straver, based on Ribal).

Whether or not children profited from the adolescent centred “sexual revolutions” of the past, in the 1980s a backlash launched a situation in which “the sexuality of children remains an unmentionable topic” (Eder et al., 1999:p17)[2]. This contrasts with earlier observations by Areco (1911:p51-2)[3] in Eastern Europe:

“In Bosnien, der Herzegowina, Südsiebenbürgen und den Karpathendörfern trifft man oft Knirpse von kaum zehn Jahren, die mit etwa gleichaltrigen mädchen in Gegenwart der Eltern Dinge treiben, die wir als grobe Unzucht bezeichnen würden. Dort aber nennt man es lächelnd nur spielen. – In der Ziganei von Oschinka—Ohaba (Siebenbürgen) forderten kaum achtjährige Mädchen gelegentlich der großen Manöver 1903 die Soldaten auf, gegen kleine Geschenke mit ihnen sexuell zu verkehren. Die Eltern unterstützten, ruhig vor ihren Hütten sitzend, die unverschämten Anträge der Kleinen durch eine in ganz Ungarn bekannte Hanbewegung, die an Deutlichkeit nicht zu wünschen übrig ließ. Man darf daher keinenwegs glauben, daß die Nacktheit der Kinder etwa in einer Überlieferung von sexueller Unkenntnis begründet sei, die Adam und Eva vor dem Sündenfalle besaßen”.

Historical issues were to some extent reviewed in a separate chapter, focusing on the classical and medieval periods. In the following collection, I wish to identify qualitative accounts on European sexual behaviour development and early socialisation, in addition to studies that may numerically corroborate such accounts.

Contemporary Age of Consent[4]

For contemporary details, one is to consult ECPAT[5], Interpol[6]  and ILGA[7]. Some data on sexual consent and sex education in East Central Europe were collected by the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP)[8]. Additionally, for 30 Central and South-Eastern Europe countries, relevant legislative statutes are summarised in the “Sexual Abuse” paragraphs of the IHFHR Women 2000: An Investigation into the Status of Women’s Rights in Central and South-Eastern Europe and the N.I.S. (Vienna, July 2000).

Graupner (1997; 2000)[9] further presented a convenient overview on the criminal law governing the sexual behaviour of, and with, children and adolescents in all European jurisdictions and in selected jurisdictions outside of Europe. Results show that all states in Europe and all of the studied jurisdictions overseas have minimum age limits for sexual relations, and punish sexual relations with persons under a certain age. Nowhere is this age set lower than 12 years. In Europe, in one-half of the jurisdictions, consensual sexual relations with 14-year-old adolescents are legal; in three-quarters, with 15-year-olds; in a majority, this is also the case when the older partner has started the relation. In nearly all jurisdictions, such relations are legal from age 16 onward. Most states apply a higher age limit for contacts in relationships of authority. If the authority is not misused, the age limit in most jurisdictions is set between 14 and 16; if it is misused, between 16 and 18. Most states make no difference between heterosexual and homosexual relations.

European age of consent is 16 for both sexes (Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Belgium, Bosnia, Finland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Norway, England, Scotland, Wales) except in the following cases. In the Netherlands, it is twelve, provided no official complaint is filed by the child, or by parental authority or Council for the Protection of Children (Art.247, Penal Code). In Spain, the age of consent was as low as twelve years, but rose to thirteen in 1998 (Art. 181.1). In Bulgaria, Estonia (Arts. 115, 116) and Croatia (Art. 192, Penal Law), Hungary (Art. 201 (1) de la Loi IV de l’an 1978, modifié par la Loi LXXIII de l’an 1997), Kosovo, Romania (Art. 198), Serbia, Italy (Art. 609), Iceland, Portugal (Art. 172)[10], Slovenia (Section 183), and Germany (Art. 176, 176a, 176b, 182)[11] it is fourteen. A 1968 statute established the homosexual age of consent at 18, but it was levelled with the heterosexual consent of 14 in 1987 by a Supreme Court ruling[12]. In the Czech Republic (Art. 242, Criminal Code), France (Art. 227-25 du Nouveau Code Pénal), Greece (Art. 339)[13], Poland (Art. 177), Slovakia, Sweden (Section 7, Penal Code)[14], and Denmark (Art. 222, Penal Code) it is fifteen. In Northern Ireland, it is seventeen.

For a running commentary on European AoC consider EuroLetter [ILGA Europe][15]. Further legal reading by Graupner:

§   Graupner, H., Sexual Consent - The Criminal Law in Europe and Overseas. Keynote-Lecture at the 7th International Conference of the International Association for the Treatment of Sexual Offenders (IATSO) "Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence - From Understanding to Protection and Prevention” (Vienna, September 11th-14th 2002), Friday, 13th September 2002 [http://members.aon.at/graupner/documents/Graupner-paper-kn-oFN.pdf]

§   Graupner, H., Das 17-jährige Kind - Jüngste europarechtliche Rahmenbedingungen für Sexualität in den Neuen Medien. Vortrag anlässlich der Fachtagung der Gesellschaft für Sexualwissenschaft e.V. (GSW) in Zusammenarbeit mit der Klinik und Poliklinik für Hautkrankheiten der Universität Leipzig, Tagungsthema: „Sexualität und Neue Medien“, Leipzig 10.05.2003 [http://members.aon.at/graupner/documents/Graupner-paper-symp-D.pdf]

§   Graupner, H., The 17-year-old Child - An Absurdity of the Late 20th Century. Paper presented at the 7th International Conference of the International Association for the Treatment of Sexual Offenders (IATSO) “Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence - From Understanding to Protection and Prevention” (Vienna, September 11th-14th 2002), “Sexuality, Adolescence & the Criminal Law”, Friday, 13th September 2002 [http://members.aon.at/graupner/documents/Graupner-paper-symp.pdf]

§   Graupner, H., The 17-year-old Child: An Absurdity of the Late 20th Century. Paper presented at the 8th International Conference of the International Association for the Treatment of Sex Offenders (IATSO), "Sex Offending is Everybody's Business", Athens, 6^th - 9th October, 2004 [http://members.aon.at/graupner/documents/IATSO-17yoChild.PDF]

§   Graupner, H., The 17-year-old Child: An Absurdity of the Late 20th Century, in Helmut Graupner & Vern Bullough (Eds.) Adolescence, Sexuality & the Criminal Law. New York: Haworth Press. A forthcoming monograph published simultaneously as the Journal of Psychology in Human Sexuality, Vol. 16, Nos. 2/3

Cross-National Survey of Studies

A summary of European adolescent sex education practices was offered by Kozakiewicz (1981)[16]. Bozon and Kontula (1997, 1998; Bozon, 2003:p3)[17] [18] [19] overview a sexarche timed in the late teens.

Further: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina,  Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic And Slovakia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuana, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Ukraine, Yugoslavia

Also: The Circum-Mediterranean

Janssen, D. F., Growing Up Sexually. Volume I. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin: Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology

Last revised: Jan 2005