Channels Television
Updated December 21, 2020
In this photo taken on December 2, 2020, Rose Alvarez, 16, — whose name AFP has changed to protect her identity — speaks during an interview inside a health centre in Manila. PHOTO: TED ALJIBE / AFP
Manila teenager Rose Alvarez was 13 when she started having sex with a man who was more than twice her age. That would be statutory rape in most countries, but not in the Philippines.
The Catholic-majority country has one of the lowest ages of consent in the world, allowing adults to legally have sex with children as young as 12 if they agree.
Child rights activists have lobbied for decades to increase the age — enshrined in the penal code since 1930 — but faced resistance from what they describe as a “culture of patriarchy” in a country where abortion and divorce are illegal.