What has come to be generally accepted globally, however, is that the best interests of the child are not served by labelling consensual sex of young people as criminal behaviour, and the move is now to reform age of consent laws to decriminalise consensual sex between adolescents in accordance with recognised rights of the child. According to Professor Pierre De Vos, “the use of criminal law as a parenting tool in matters relating to the sexual development of teenagers is impossible to square with the rights guaranteed in the Constitution”.8 In the Teddy Bear Clinic case, Justice Sisi Kampepe emphasised that the challenge with criminalising normative adolescent sexual conduct is that it drives adolescent sexual behaviour underground and this makes it very difficult for adults to provide affirmative support and guidance on matters of sexuality to the adolescents. At international law level, the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), in its General Comment 20 on the implementation of the rights of the child during adolescence (CRC General Comment 20),9 enjoined State parties to balance protection and evolving capacities when defining an acceptable minimum legal age for sexual consent. The CRC stated that “States should avoid criminalizing adolescents of similar ages for factually consensual and non-exploitative sexual activity”. A rights-based approach to regulating sexual conduct between adolescents is crucial. The principle of the development of the child requires that the increasing sexual awareness of the child and the evolving capacity of the child to engage in sexual activity should receive positive affirmation rather than a negative appreciation. This entails that adolescents receive the necessary education, and that from early in their lives, they develop equitable attitudes to gender and sexuality.10 The reality is that juvenile sexuality is a fact and a reality, and an apt response is needed. Given the context of young people increasingly engaging in sexual conduct among themselves, criminalising such sexual activity has implications beyond just the criminal sanctions: it shapes attitudes and the sexual health systems’ response in the country that will inevitably not provide support, treatment and sex education to the minors involved in the criminalised acts. Criminalising such conduct would most likely perpetuate stigma against children who engage in sexual activity, and this has a potentially negative influence on the attitudes of parents, teachers and health providers toward sexually-active children.11 appropriate interventions. Availing contraceptive protection is one such intervention. A more rigorous and open approach to what is actually taught as sexual education in schools is another”. 8 Pierre De Vos “Teen sex: The law can’t replace parenting” Daily Maverick 10 October 2013, https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2013-10-10-teen-sex-the-law-cant-replace-parenting/ 9 Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) General Comment 20: The implementation of the rights of the child during adolescence UN Doc CRC/C/GC/20 (December 6, 2016). 10 Godfrey Dalitso Kangaude and Ann Skelton “(De)Criminalizing Adolescent Sex: A Rights-Based Assessment of Age of Consent Laws in Eastern and Southern Africa” (2008) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244018806036. 11 Godfrey D Kangaude “Adolescent sex and 'defilement' in Malawi law and society” [2017] 24 AHRLJ 529-551 at 545. 22