Liberalising age of consent laws will not encourage paedophilia or make sexual exploitation any easier. That is simply a false nightmare scenario propagated by scaremongers. Many countries have lowered the basic age of consent while strengthening their ‘plus elements’. For example, by making ‘sexual grooming’ an offence (to stop rings of internet paedophiles); by making it an offence to have sex with a young child if you are above a certain age or if the age differential between the partners is above a certain limit (to target adult paedophiles while allowing teens their sexual freedom); and by making it an offence to have sex with someone who is in a relationship of trust of dependency with you (to stop sexual exploitation).