Within the Childhood Plan presented yesterday by the Minister of Health and Social Services, and Equality, the Government raises the minimum age to marry up to 16 years. In addition, political groups are urged to discuss the minimum age for consensual sexual relations (Spain is one of the two European states where the norm regulating this aspect is more lax).
They are not the only points included in this II Strategic Plan for Children and Adolescents 2013/2016 that will become a frame of reference for the central Government and the autonomous governments in the matter of childhood. Its application is good news if you act effectively and in a coordinated manner between the different Autonomous Communities. According to Save the Children, the Plan can contribute to greater protection of children in Spain. Actually, in our country the legal age to marry is 18 years, however if you have a judicial permit or the family authorizes it, it is possible to marry at 14. I have been consulting the data of the National Statistics Institute on marriages during the first semester of 2012, and really the number of unions between girls and boys up to 16 years are very few. That is why I value more positively the claim that the minimum age for sexual intercourse to be consented is raised, this will happen according to Parliament, as explained by Ana Mato.
This Plan presents notable improvements over the previous one, sets 8 more concrete and measurable objectives, articulated in more than 125 measures, with indicators for its realization and has an allocated budget of more than 5,100 million euros.
The objectives of the Plan do not address all areas of action that may affect the lives of children, although they do host two other issues on which Save the Children has repeatedly called attention: child poverty and the risk of social exclusion and violence against children.
In relation to the protection of children and the eradication of violence against children, the Plan is a useful frame of reference, but it is not enough to respond to such a serious and complex problem, which requires greater efforts. Save the Children demands the adoption of a law on violence against children that addresses this problem in a comprehensive and complete way
Other points of the Plan for the protection of minors
The project also highlights the importance of protect children from harmful Internet content. Education in healthy habits to combat obesity, among other things, is also taken into account. We could also highlight as a measure to achieve the homogenization of the age of access to alcoholic beverages (at age 18), and the attention of minors by pediatric doctors (we had already talked about the specialists maintaining this claim).
Another of the axes is in the speeding up of measures for the reception of minors: this would prioritize measures of foster care over detention in closed centers for minors, in cases where it is necessary.
The adaptation of interventions in situations of minors victims of gender violence is very necessary, and the government also intends to adopt the European directives on sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and child pornography.
You could say that the objectives of the Plan they are very positive, although every Plan must have quantifiable instruments to guarantee its effective application. Among the criticisms that this initiative has received is that the amount allocated only serves to replenish the cut items of the dependency, family and childhood budgets.
The president of the Children's Platform believes that the Plan is very necessary for the protection of minors, although in his opinion there has been no deep development of measures to combat child poverty, despite being a request made expressly to the Ministry.
