FIDA national chairperson Josephine Mongare has said that a large number of boys in their teenage years have received the brutal slap of the law after they were sentenced to longer jail terms which appear more than their offences.
Speaking over the need to lower the consensual age from 18 to 16, Mongare said that prisons have consumed the lives of young boys who were found guilty of sexual offences against females of their age.
"If you do an audit now in our prisons you will find young boys of 20 and 21 years serving jail terms over sexual offenses involving their peers and their life is ruined, this bill is meant to save teenage boys who the law leans on them alone when it comes to sexual offenses," she said.
Ms Mongare further said that the current law lists any sexual offender on a permanent register, something she said has been the ruin of the lives of many teenagers.
"Once you are profiled on the sexual offenders register, then you are unlucky," she said.
She said that one way of protecting the boy child is by lowering the age of consensual age from 18 to 16.