GOP Senators Urge US Ambassador to Denounce UN-backed Report They Claim Is Supportive of ‘Pedophiles’

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) speaks during a hearing on worldwide threats in Washington on March 8, 2023. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

A group of Republican senators sent a letter to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield and asked that condemn a U.N.-endorsed report that they allege “gives credence” to pedophiles while eroding rules that protect minors from abuse and sexual exploitation.

Led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the senators wrote that they want to know whether the White House or Thomas-Greenfield were aware of the report before it was published last month.

“We stand firmly against any foreign effort that seeks to undermine the well-established legal principle that children do not possess the emotional or mental maturity required to consent to sexual relations. We, therefore, request your immediate opposition to these efforts and to rescind any U.S. taxpayer money that may have contributed to the United Nations that crafted this report,” the senators wrote, according to a Rubio press release. “This flies in the face of laws across the United States, and much of the world affirms that all manners of sex between children and adults are coercive.”

They were referring to a U.N.-backed report (pdf) from the International Commission of Jurists that says, in part, that “sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law” in a report called, sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law

The report does not specifically call for decriminalizing sexual relations between adults and minors. However, it does suggest that children have the legal right and capability to make such decisions.

“The enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them. Pursuant to their evolving capacities and progressive autonomy, persons under 18 years of age should participate in decisions affecting them, with due regard to their age, maturity, and best interests, and with specific attention to non-discrimination guarantees,” it says.

What the Report Says

This report was a result of a meeting with the International Commission of Jurists, UNAIDS, and the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The U.N. groups are among those that are “endorsers and supporters” of the latest report.

“Consensual sexual conduct, irrespective of the type of sexual activity, the sex/ gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression of the people involved or their marital status, may not be criminalized in any circumstances. Consensual same-sex, as well as consensual different-sex sexual relations, or consensual sexual relations with or between trans, non-binary and other gender-diverse people, or outside marriage—whether pre-marital or extramarital—may, therefore, never be criminalized,” according to the report.

It continued to say: “With respect to the enforcement of criminal law, any prescribed minimum age of consent to sex must be applied in a non-discriminatory manner. Enforcement may not be linked to the sex/gender of participants or age of consent to marriage. Moreover, sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual, in fact, if not in law. In this context, the enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them.”

“Pursuant to their evolving capacities and progressive autonomy, persons under 18 years of age should participate in decisions affecting them, with due regard to their age, maturity and best interests, and with specific attention to non-discrimination guarantees,” it said.

Disputed

The International Commission of Jurists issued a statement on Thursday and said that online claims saying the report is calling for the decriminalization of sex with minors are false.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, at a briefing in New York City on March 1, 2021. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

“The 8 March Principles do not call for the decriminalization of sex with children, nor do they call for the abolition of a domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex,” the International Commission of Jurists said in a statement. “Indeed, the ICJ stresses that States have a clear obligation under international law to protect children from all forms of abuses, such as child sexual abuse, including through the criminalization of such conduct.”

Similarly, Christine Stegling, a UNAIDS deputy executive director, said: “In the application of law, it is recognized that criminal sanctions are not appropriate against adolescents of similar ages for consensual non-exploitative sexual activity.”

Alexander A. Boni-Saenz, a law professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, agreed that the document “does not advocate for the decriminalization of sex between adults and children.”

“What it does do is suggest that the law should not be enforced in discriminatory way, for instance, by setting different age of consent based on sex of the participants in the sexual activity or the marital status of those involved,” Boni-Saenz said.

However, Rubio and the other GOP senators said that the report, in fact, “explicitly undermines the safeguards our society has established to protect our children from the sexual predations of pedophiles and other sexual criminals.”

They requested that Thomas-Greenfield respond to their letter and questions about the U.N.-backed report.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.